BV  210  .P5  1893 

Phelps,  Austin,  1820-1890. 

The  still  hour 


^u 


lM>uJ-i^^^^%Ui^ 


THE  STILL  HOUR 


OB 


COMMUNION    WITH    GOD 


"^. 


*     JUN>i3l910 


A 


AUSTIN    PHELP 

Professor  in  Andover  Theolonim.'  Sem.inbiA'/^/ij  *~"^  *^  *" >"*^ »      ^- 


By  all  means,  use  sometimes  to  be  alone. 

Salute  thyself;  sec  what  thy  soul  doth  wear. 
Dare  to  look  in  thy  chest;  for  'tis  thine  own; 

And  tumble  up  and  down  what  thou  find'st  there. 

GsoRQE  Hbbbxbt. 


BOSTON 
LOTHROP,  LEE  &  SHEPARD  CO. 


COPTRIGHT,   1885, 

BY 
D.  LOTHKOP  &  Co. 


Cui'YRIGHT,   1893, 

BT 

T).    LOTHBOP  COJtPAirS'. 


PREFATORY   NOTE. 


Some  subjects  of  religious  meditation  are 
always  timely,  and  sta?idard  thoughts  upon 
them  the  most  timely.  Such,  it  is  hoped, 
will  be  found  to  be  the  character  of  the  fol- 
lowing pages. 

A  portion  of  them  have  been  delivered  as 
a  sermon,  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  and  several  times  else- 
where. Evidences  of  their  usefulness  in  that 
form  have  been  so  obvious,  that  the  author  is 
induced  to  comply  with  the  repeated  requests 
which  have  reached  him,  that  they  should  be 
given  to  the  press. 

That  they  should  be  much  enlarged  in  the 
course  of  revision  for  this  purpose,  is  almost 
the  necessary  result  of  a  review  of  a  subject 
so  prolific,  and  so  vital  to  Christian  hearts. 

Theological  Seminary, 

Andover,  Mass.,  Dec.  1859. 


v^ 


PREFACE. 


The  author  of  this  volume  has  often  been 
requested  to  enlarge  it  in  a  new  edition.  The 
Rev.  Albert  Barnes  of  Philadelphia  once  de- 
sired that  it  should  be  expanded  into  a  com- 
plete treatise  on  Prayer.  Such  an  expansion 
might  augment  its  usefulness  in  some  respects, 
but  would  sacrifice  features  on  which  that  use- 
fulness thus  far  has  largely  depended.  Its 
circulation  in  its  original  form  has  been  so 
cheering,  extending  into  six  different  lan- 
guages, and  the  author's  correspondence  has 
brought  to  him  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe 
such  evidences  of  its  good  work,  that  he  fears 


PKEFACE. 

to  disarrange  it  by  a  revision  of  it  line  by 
line. 

As  the  years  have  gone  by  it  has  come  to 
be  to  him  like  the  work  of  another  mind. 
Under  this  condition  he  ventures  to  believe 
that  there  was  a  divine  guidance  in  its  original 
construction.  He  therefore  only  adds  to  it 
material  which  has  grown  of  its  early  history. 

AxDOVER  Theological  Seminaiit. 

Oct,  h  189a 


NOTE. 


The  world-wide  circulation  of  The  Still 
Hour  —  which  has  been  estimated  at  two 
hundred  thousand  —  had  already  called  for  a 
new  edition  of  this  book  before  its  author's 
summons  to  the  Life  and  Health  Everlasting. 

It  need  only  be  said  that  the  Preface  and 
new  material  added  to  the  volume,  received 
the  final  touches  from  the  dying  hand ;  and 
that  these  were  among  the  last  cares  which 
he  gave  to  any  earthly  matter. 

Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps. 


CONTENTS. 


I. 

PAOB 

ABSENCE  OF  GOD,  IN  PEAYEE,        ....        7 

II. 
UNHALLOWED  PKAYER, 16 

III. 
EOMANCE  IN  PRAYEK, 22 

IV. 
DISTKUST  IN  PRAYEE,        ......        35 

V. 

FAITH  IN  PEAYEE,       . 42 

VI. 

SPECIFIC  AND  INTENSE  PEAYEE,  .        .        .        ,        49 


VI  CONTENTS. 

VII. 

PASS 

TEMPERAMENT  OF  PRAYER,     .        .        .        .        .58 

VTII. 
INDOLENCE  IN  PRAYER, 64 

IX. 

IDOLATRY  IN  PRAYER, 76 

X. 

CONTINUANCE  IN  PRAYER, 86 

XI. 

FRAGMENTARY  PRAYER, 95 

XII. 
AID  OF  THE  HOLY  SPIRIT  IN  PRAYER,       .        .      108 

XIII. 
REALITY  OF  CHRIST  IN  PRAYER,  ...      120 

XIV. 
MODERN  HABITS  OF  PRAYER,  .        .        .      1^ 

XV. 

FAITH 137 


THE  STILL  HOUR. 


OH  THAT  I  KNEW  WHERE  I  MIGHT  FIND  HIM ! 

Job  23 :  a 

'  If  God  had  not  said,  "  Blessed  are 
those  that  hunger,"  I  know  not  what  could 
keep  weak  Christians  from  sinking  in  de- 
spair. Many  times,  all  I  can  do  is  to  com- 
plain that  I  want  Him,  and  wish  to  recover 
Him.' 

Bishop  Hall,  in  uttering  this  lament,  two 
centuries  and  a  half  ago,  only  echoed  the 
wail  which  had  come  down,  through  living 
hearts,  from  the  patriarch,  whose  story  is 
the  oldest  known  literature  in  any  lan- 
guage.     A   consciousness    of    the   ahsenct 


8  THE    STILL    HOUR. 

of  God  is  one  of  the  standing  incidents 
of  religious  life.  Even  when  the  forms 
of  devotion  are  observed  conscientiously, 
the  sense  of  the  presence  of  God,  as  an 
invisible  Friend,  whose  society  is  a  joy,  is 
by  no  means  unintermittent. 

The  truth  of  this  will  not  be  questioned 
by  one  who  is  familiar  with  those  phases  of 
religious  experience  which  are  so  often  the 
burden  of  Christian  confession.  In  no  sin- 
gle feature  of  '  inner  life,'  probably,  is  the 
experience  of  many  minds  less  satisfactory 
to  them  than  in  this.  They  seem  to  them- 
selves, in  prayer,  to  have  little,  if  any, 
effluent  emotion.  They  can  speak  of  little 
in  their  devotional  life  that  seems  to  them 
like  life ;  of  little  that  appears  like  the 
communion  of  a  living  soul  with  a  living 
God.  Are  there  not  many  '  closet  hours,' 
in  which  the  chief  feeling  of  the  worshipper 
is  an  oppressed  consciousness  of  the  absence 
of  reality  from  his  own  exercises  ?     He  has 


PAYSON.  9 

no  words  which  are,  as  George  Herbert 
says,  ^  heart  deep.'  He  not  only  experi- 
ences no  ecstasy,  but  no  joy,  no  peace,  no 
repose.  He  has  no  sense  of  being  at  home 
with  God.  The  stillness  of  the  hour  is  the 
stillness  of  a  dead  calm  at  sea.  The  heart 
rocks  monotonously  on  the  surface  of  the 
great  thoughts  of  God,  of  Christ,  of  Eter- 
nity, of  Heaven  — 

*  As  idle  as  a  painted  ship 
Upon  a  painted  ocean.' 

Such  experiences  in  prayer  are  often 
startling  in  the  contrast  with  those  of  cer- 
tain Christians,  whose  communion  with 
God,  as  the  hints  of  it  are  recorded  in  their 
biographies,  seems  to  realize,  in  actual  be- 
ing, the  scriptural  conception  of  a  life  which 
is  hid  with  Christ  in  God. 

We  read  of  Payson,  that  his  mind,  at 
times,  almost  lost  its  sense  of  the  external 
world,  in  the  ineffable  thoughts  of  God'a 


10  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

glory,   which    rolled    like   a  sea  of   light 
around  him,  at  the  throne  of  grace. 

We  read  of  Cowper,  that,  in  one  of  the 
few  lucid  hours  of  his  religious  life,  such 
f7as  the  experience  of  God's  presence  which 
ke  enjoyed  in  prayer,  that,  as  he  tells  us, 
he  thought  he  should  have  died  with  joy,  if 
special  strength  had  not  been  imparted  to 
him  to  bear  the  disclosure. 

We  read  of  one  of  the  Tennents,  that  on 
one  occasion,  when  he  was  engaged  in  secret 
devotion,  so  overpowering  was  the  revela- 
tion of  God  which  opened  upon  his  soul, 
and  with  augmenting  intensity  of  effulgence 
as  he  prayed,  that  at  length  he  recoiled  from 
the  intolerable  joy  as  from  a  pain,  and  be- 
sought God  to  withhold  from  him  further 
manifestations  of  his  glory.  He  said, '  Shall 
Thy  servant  see  Thee  and  live  ? ' 

We    read  of    the  'sweet  hours'  which 
Edwards  enjoyed  'on   the  banks  of  Hud^ 
son's  River,  in  secret  converse  with  God,' 


EDWARDS.  11 

and  hear  his  own  description  of  the  inward 
sense  of  Christ  which  at  times  came  into 
his  heart,  and  which  he  '  knows  not  how  to 
express  otherwise  than  by  a  calm,  sweet 
abstraction  of  soul  from  all  the  concerns 
of  this  world  ;  and  sometimes  a  kind  of 
vision  *  *  *  *  of  being  alone  in  the 
mountains,  or  some  solitary  wilderness, 
far  from  all  mankind,  sweetly  conversing 
with  Christ,  and  rapt  and  swallowed  up  in 
God.' 

We  read  of  such  instances  of  the  fruits 
of  prayer,  in  the  blessedness  of  the  suppli- 
ant, and  are  we  not  reminded  by  them  of 
the  transfiguration  of  our  Lord,  of  whom 
we  read,  '  As  he  prayed,  the  fashion  of  his 
countenance  was  altered,  and  his  raiment 
was  white  and  glistering?'  Who  of  us 
is  not  oppressed  dj  the  contrast  between 
such  an  experience  and  his  own  ?  Does  not 
the  cry  of  the  patriarch  come  unbidden  to 


12  THE    STILL    HOUR. 

our  lips,  'Oh  that  I  knew  where  /  might 
find  Him'? 

Much  of  even  the  ordinary  language  of 
Christians,  respecting  the  joy  of  communion 
with  God,  —  language  which  is  stereotyped 
in  our  dialect  of  prayer, —  many  cannot 
honestly  apply  to  the  history  of  their  own 
minds.  A  calm,  fearless  self-examination 
finds  no  counterpart  to  it  in  anything  they 
have  ever  known.  In  the  view  of  an  honest 
conscience,  it  is  not  the  vernacular  speech 
of  their  experience.  As  compared  with  the 
joy  which  such  language  indicates,  prayer 
is,  in  all  that  they  know  of  it,  a  dull  duty. 
Perhaps  the  characteristic  of  the  feelings  of 
many  about  it  is  expressed  in  the  single  fact, 
that  it  is  to  them  a  duty  as  distinct  from  a 
privilege.  It  is  a  duty  which,  they  cannot 
deny,  is  often  uninviting,  even  irksome. 

li  some  ci  us  should  attempt  to  define  the 
advantage  we  derive  from  a  performance 
of  the  duty,  we  might  be  surprised,  per- 


COWPER.  18 

haps  shocked,  as  one  after  another  of  the 
folds  of  a  deceived  heart  should  be  taken 
off,  at  the  discovery  of  the  littleness  of  the 
residuum,  in  an  honest  judgment  of  our- 
selves. Why  did  we  pray  this  morning  f* 
Do  we  often  derive  any  other  profit  from 
prayer,  than  that  of  satisfying  convictions 
of  conscience,  of  which  we  could  not  rid 
ourselves  if  we  wished  to  do  so,  and  which 
will  not  permit  us  to  be  at  ease  with  our- 
selves, if  all  forms  of  prayer  are  abandoned  ? 
Perhaps  even  so  slight  a  thing  as  the  pain 
of  resistance  to  the  momentum  of  a  habit, 
will  be  found  to  be  the  most  distinct  reason 
we  can  honestly  give  for  having  prayed  yes- 
terday or  to-day. 

There  may  be  periods,  also,  when  the 
experiences  of  the  closet  enable  some  of  us 
to  understand  that  maniacal  cry  of  Cowper, 
when  his  friends  requested  him  to  prepare 
some  hymns  for  the  Olney  Collection. 
'  How  can  you  ask  of  me  such  a  service  ? 


14  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

I  seem  to  myself  to  be  banished  to  a  re- 
moteness from  God's  presence,  in  compari- 
son with  which  the  distance  from  East  to 
West  is  vicinity,  is  cohesion/ 

If  such  language  is  too  strong  to  be  truth- 
ful to  the  common  experience  of  the  class 
of  professing  Christians  to  which  those 
whom  it  represents  belong,  many  will  still 
discern  in  it,  as  an  expression  of  joylessness 
in  prayer,  a  sufficient  approximation  to  their 
own  experience,  to  awaken  interest  in  some 
thoughts  upon  the  causes  op  a  want  of 

ENJOYMENT  IN  PRAYER. 

The  evil  of  such  an  experience  in  prayer, 
is  too  obvious  to  need  illustration.  If  any 
light  can  be  thrown  upon  the  causes  of  it, 
there  is  no  man  living,  whatever  may  be  his 
religious  state,  who  has  not  an  interest  in 
making  it  the  theme  of  inquiry.  'Never 
any  more  wonder,'  says  an  old  writer, '  that 
men  pray  so  seldom.  For  there  are  vgpy 
few  that  feel  the  relish^  and  are  enticed  with 


THE   STILL  HOUR.  16 

the  deliciousness,  and  refreshed  with  the  com- 
forts, and  acquainted  with  the  secrets,  of  a 
holy  prayer.'  Yet,  who  is  it  that  has  said, 
*  I  will  make  them  joijful  in  my  house  of 
prayer'? 


11. 


WHAT   IS   THE  HOPE   OF    THE   HYPOCRITE  ?    WILL  GOD 
HEAR  HIS  CRY  ?  —  Job  27 :  8,  9. 

An  impenitent  sinner  never  prays.  In  an 
inquiry  after  the  causes  of  joylessness  in  the 
forms  of  prayer,  the  very  first  which  meets 
us,  in  some  instances,  is  the  absence  of  piety. 
It  is  useless  to  search  behind  or  beneath 
such  a  cause  as  this  for  a  more  recondite 
explanation  of  the  evil.  This  is,  doubtless, 
often  all  the  interpretation  that  can  be  hon- 
estly given  to  a  man's  experience  in  address- 
ing God.  Other  reasons  for  the  lifelessness 
of  his  soul  in  prayer  are  rooted  in  this,— 
that  he  is  not  a  Christian. 

If  the  heart  is  not  right  with  God,  enjog, 
ment  of  communion  with  God  is  impossible. 


CONCEALMENT   OP   GOD.  17 

That  communion  itself  is  impossible.  I 
repeat,  an  impenitent  sinner  never  prays. 
Impenitence  involves  not  one  of  the  ele- 
ments of  a  spirit  of  prayer.  Holy  desire, 
holy  love,  holy  fear,  holy  trust  —  not  one 
of  these  can  the  sinner  find  within  himself. 
He  has,  therefore,  none  of  that  artless  spon- 
taneity, in  calling  upon  God,  which  David 
exhibited  when  he  said,  '  Thy  servant  hath 
found  171  his  heart  to  pray  this  prayer  unto 
thee.'  An  impenitent  sinner  finds  no  such 
thing  in  his  heart.  He  finds  there  no  intel- 
ligent wish  to  enjoy  God's  friendship.  The 
whole  atmosphere  of  prayer,  therefore,  is 
foreign  to  his  tastes.  If  he  drives  himself 
into  it  for  a  time,  by  forcing  upon  his  soul 
the  forms  of  devotion,  he  cannot  stay  there. 
He  is  like  one  gasping  in  a  vacuum. 

One  of  the  most  impressive  mysteries  of 
the  condition  of  man  on  this  earth,  is  his 
deprivation  of  all  visible  and  audible  repre- 
sentations of  God.     We  seem  to  be  living 

2 


18  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

in  a  state  of  seclusion  from  the  rest  of 
the  universe,  and  from  that  peculiar  pres- 
ence of  God  in  which  angels  dwell,  and  in 
which  departed  saints  serve  Him  day  and 
night.  We  do  not  see  Him  in  the  fire  ;  we 
do  not  hear  Him  in  the  wind ;  we  do  not 
feel  Him  in  the  darkness.  But  a  more 
awful  concealment  of  God  from  the  unre- 
generate  soul  exists  by  the  very  law  of  an 
unregenerate  state.  The  eye  of  such  a  soul 
is  closed  even  upon  the  spiritual  manifesta- 
tions of  God,  in  all  but  their  retributive 
aspects.  These  are  all  that  it  feels.  These 
are  all  the  thoughts  of  God  which  it  has 
faith  in.  Such  a  soul  does  not  enjoy  God, 
for  it  does  not  see  God  with  an  eye  of  faith 
—  that  is,  as  a  living  God,  living  close  to 
itself,  and  in  vital  relations  to  its  own  des- 
tiny —  except  as  a  retributive  Power. 

The  only  thing  that  forbids  life,  in  any  of 
its  experiences,  to  be  a  life  of  retribution-fo 
an  impenitent  sinner,  is  a  dead  sleep  of 


DEAD   SLEEP  IN   SIN.  19 

moral  sensibility.  And  this  sleep  cannot  be 
disturbed  while  he  remains  impenitent,  oth- 
erwise than  by  disclosures  of  God  as  a  con- 
suming fire.  His  experience,  therefore,  in 
the  forms  of  devotion,  while  he  abides  in 
impenitence,  can  only  vibrate  between  the 
extremes  of  weariness  and  of  terror.  Quell 
his  fear  of  God,  and  prayer  becomes  irk- 
some ;  stimulate  his  indifference  to  God, 
and  prayer  becomes  a  torment. 

The  notes  of  a  flute  are  sometimes  a  tor- 
ture to  the  ears  of  idiots,  like  the  blare  of  a 
trumpet.  The  reason  has  been  conjectured 
to  be,  that  melodious  sound  unlocks  the 
tomb  of  idiotic  mind  by  the  suggestion  of 
conceptions,  dim,  but  startling,  like  a  reve- 
lation of  a  higher  life,  with  which  that 
mind  has  certain  crushed  affinities,  but  with 
wliich  it  feels  no  willing  sympathy  ;  so  that 
its  own  degradation,  disclosed  to  it  by  the 
contrast,  is  seated  upon  the  consciousness 
of  idiocy  like  a  nightmare.     Such  a  stimu- 


20  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

lant  only  to  suffering,  may  the  form  of 
prayer  be  in  the  experience  of  sin.  Im- 
penitent prayer  can  only  grovel  in  stagnant 
sensibility,  or  agonize  in  remorseful  tor- 
ture, or  oscillate  from  one  to  the  other. 
There  is  no  point  of  joy  between  to  which 
it  can  gravitate,  and  there  rest. 

It  is  not  wise  that  even  we,  who  profess  to 
be  followers  of  Christ,  should  close  our  eyes 
to  this  truth,  that  the  uniform  absence  of 
joy  in  prayer  is  one  of  the  threatening  signs 
in  respect  of  our  religious  state.  It  is  one 
of  the  legitirhate  intimations  of  that  es- 
trangement from  God,  which  sin  induces 
in  one  who  has  not  experienced  God's  re- 
newing grace.  A  searching  of  ourselves 
with  an  honest  desire  to  know  the  truth, 
and  the  whole  of  it,  may  disclose  to  us 
other  kindred  facts,  with  which  this  feature 
of  our  condition  becomes  reasonable  evi- 
dence, which  it  will   be   the  loss   of  our 

^ — / 

souls  to  neglect,  that  we  are  self-deluded 


THE   STILL  HOUR.  21 

in  our  Christian  hope.  An  apostle  might 
number  us  among  the  ^many,'  of  whom 
he  would  say,  '  I  now  tell  you,  even  weep- 
ing,, that  they  are  enemies  of  the  cross  of 
Christ.' 


III. 


IF      I    REGARD    INIQUITY    IN    MY    HEART,    THE     LORD 
WILL  NOT  HEAR  ME — Ps.  66:  18. 

We  often  affront  God  by  offering  prayers 
which  we  are  not  willing  to  have  answered. 
Theoretical  piety  is  never  more  deceptive 
than  in  acts  of  devotion.  We  pray  for 
blessings  which  we  know  to  be  accordant 
with  God's  will,  and  we  persuade  ourselves 
that  we  desire  those  blessings.  In  the  ab- 
stract, we  do  desire  them.  A  sane  mind 
must  be  far  gone  in  sympathy  with  devils, 
if  it  can  help  desiring  all  virtue  in  the 
abstract. 

The  dialect  of  prayer  established  in  Chris- 
tian usage,  wins  our  trust ;  we  sympathize-^ 
with  its  theoretical  significance ;    we  find 


ROMANCE    IN   PRAYER.  23 

no  fault  with  its  intensity  of  spiritual  life. 
Jt  commends  itself  to  our  conscience  and 
good  sense,  as  being  what  the  phraseology  of 
devout  affection  should  be.  Ancient  forms 
of  prayer  are  beautiful  exceedingly.  Their 
hallowed  associations  fascinate  us  like  old 
songs.  In  certain  imaginative  moods,  we 
fall  into  delicious  reverie  over  them.  Yet 
down  deep  in  our  heart  of  hearts,  we  may 
detect  more  of  poetry  than  of  piety  in  this 
fashion  of  joy.  We  are  troubled,  therefore, 
and  our  countenance  is  changed. 

Many  of  the  prime  objects  of  prayer 
enchant  us  only  in  the  distance.  Brought 
near  to  us,  and  in  concrete  forms,  and 
made  to  grow  lifelike  in  our  conceptions, 
they  very  sensibly  abate  the  pulse  of  our 
longing  to  possess  them,  because  we  cannot 
but  discover  that,  to  realize  them  in  our 
lives,  certain  other  darling  objects  must  be 
sacrificed,  which  we  are  not  yet  willing  to 
part  with.     The  paradox  is  true  to  the  life. 


24  THE   STILL   HOUK. 

that  a  man  may  even  fear  an  answer  to  his 
prayers. 

A  very  good  devotee  may  be  a  very  dis- 
honest suppliant.  When  he  leaves  the 
height  of  meditative  abstraction,  and,  as 
we  very  significantly  say  in  our  Saxon 
phrase,  comes  to  himself,  he  may  find  that 
his  true  character,  his  real  self,  is  that  of  no 
petitioner  at  all.  His  devotions  have  been 
dramatic.  The  sublimities  of  the  closet 
have  been  but  illusions.  He  has  been 
acting  a  pantomime.  He  has  not  really 
desired  that  God  would  give  heed  to  him, 
for  any  other  purpose  than  to  give  him  an 
hour  of  pleasurable  devotional  excitement. 
That  his  objects  of  prayer  should  actually 
be  inwrought  into  his  character,  and  should 
live  in  his  own  consciousness,  is  by  no  means 
the  thing  he  has  been  thinking  of,  and  is 
the  last  thing  he  is  ready  just  now  to  wish 
for.  If  he  has  a  Christian  heart  buried  up— ^ 
anvwhere  beneath  this  heap  of  pietism,  it 


ENVIOUS   DEVOTION.  25 

is  very  probable  that  the  discovery  of  the 
burlesque  of  prayer  of  which  he  has  been 
guilty,  will  transform  his  fit  of  romance 
into  some  sort  of  hypochondriacal  suffer- 
ing. Despondency  is  the  natural  offspring 
of  theatrical  devotion. 

Let  us  observe  this  paradox  of  Christian 
life  in  two  or  three  illustrations. 

An  envious  Christian  —  we  must  tolerate 
the  contradiction  :  to  be  true  to  the  facts  of 
life,  we  must  join  strange  opposites  —  an 
envious  Christian  prays,  with  becoming  de- 
voutness,  that  God  will  impart  to  him  a  gen- 
erous, loving  spirit,  and  a  conscience  void 
of  offence  to  all  men.  His  mind  is  in  a  sol- 
emn state,  his  heart  is  not  insensible  to  the 
beauty  of  the  virtues  which  he  seeks.  His 
posture  is  lowly,  his  tones  sincere,  and  self- 
delusion  is  one  of  those  processes  of  weak- 
ness which  are  facilitated  by  the  deception 
of  bodily  habitude.  His  prayer  goes  on 
glibly,  till  conscience  grows  impatient,  and 


26  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

reminds  him  of  certain  of  his  equals,  whoso 
prosperity  stirs  up  within  him  that  *envy 
wliich  is  the  rottenness  of  the  bones.' 

What  then  ?  Very  probably,  he  quits  tJiat 
subject  of  prayer,  and  passes  to  another,  on 
which  his  conscience  is  not  so  eagle-eyed. 
But  after  that  glimpse  of  a  hidden  sin,  how 
do  the  clouds  of  estrangement  from  God 
seem  to  shut  him  in,  dark  and  damp  and 
chill,  and  his  prayer  become  like  a  dismal 
pattering  of  rain ! 

An  ambitious  Christian  prays  that  God 
will  bestow  upon  him  a  humble  spirit.  He 
volunteers  to  take  a  low  place,  because  of 
his  unworthiness.  He  asks  that  he  may  be 
delivered  from  pride  and  self-seeking.  He 
repeats  the  prayer  of  the  publican,  and  the 
benediction  upon  the  poor  in  spirit.  The 
whole  group  of  the  virtues  kindred  to  hu- 
mility, seems  to  him  as  radiant  as  the 
Graces  with  loveliness.  He  is  sensible  of-^ 
^p  chep]^  in  the  fluency  of  his  emotions,  till 


UNFORGIVING   PRAYER.  27 

his  conscience,  too,  becomes  angry,  and 
dashes  the  little  eddy  of  goodness  which 
is  just  now  covering  up  the  undertow  of 
selfishness  that  imperils  his  soul.  If  then 
he  is  not  melted  into  tears  at  the  disclosure 
of  his  heartlessness,  that  prayer  probably 
ends  in  a  clouded  brow,  and  a  feverish, 
querulous  self-conflict. 

A  revengeful  Christian  prays  that  he  may 
have  a  meek  spirit ;  that  he  may  be  harm- 
less as  doves ;  that  the  synonymous  graces 
of  forbearance,  long-sufiering,  patience,  may 
adorn  his  life  ;  that  he  may  put  away  bit<;er- 
ness,  and  wrath,  and  anger,  and  clamor, 
and  evil-speaking,  with  all  malice;  that 
that  mind  may  be  found  in  him  which  was 
also  in  Christ.  At  the  moment  of  this  de- 
votional episode  in  his  experience,  he  feels, 
as  Rousseau  did,  the  abstract  grandeur  of  a 
magnanimity  like  that  of  Jesus.  There  is 
no  doubt  about  the  fervor  of  his  theoretic 
love  of  such  an  ideal  of  character ;  and  he 


28  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

is  about  to  take  courage  from  his  rapture, 
when  his  conscience  becomes  impertinent, 
and  mocks  him,  by  thrusting  upon  his  lips 
the  words  which  are  death  to  his  conceit  — 
'Forgive  me  as  I  forgive.'  If  then  he  is 
not  shocked  into  self-abhorrence  at  the 
ghastliness  of  his  guilt,  he  probably  ex- 
hausts that  hour  of  prayer  in  palliations 
and  compromises,  or  in  reckless  impositions 
upon  the  forbearance  of  God. 

A  luxurious  Christian  prays,  in  the  good 
set  phrases  of  devotion,  for  a  spirit  of  self- 
denial  :  that  he  may  endure  hardness  as  a 
good  soldier  of  Christ ;  that  he  may  take 
up  the  cross  and  follow  Christ ;  that  he 
may  be  ready  to  forsake  all  that  he  hath, 
and  be  Christ's  disciple ;  that  he  may  not 
live  unto  himself;  that  he  may  imitate 
Him  who  went  about  doing  good,  —  who 
became  poor  that  we  might  be  rich,  and 
who  wept  over  lost  souls.  In  such  a  prayer" 
there  may  be,  consciously,  no  insincerity, 


EFFEMINATE   PBAYER.  29 

but  a  pleasurable  sympathy,  rather,  with  the 
grand  thoughts  and  the  grander  feeling 
which  the  language  portrays.  The  heart 
is  buoyant  with  its  gaseous  distension  to 
the  bounds   of   its   great   swelling  words. 

This  lover  of  the  pride  of  life  does  not 
discover  his  self-inflation,  till  conscience 
pricks  him  with  such  goads  as  these  :  *  Are 
you  living  for  the  things  you  are  praying 
for  ? '  — '  What  one  thing  are  you  doing  for 
Christ  which  costs  you  self-denial  V  — '  Are 
you  seeking  for  opportunities  to  deny  your- 
self, to  save  souls  ? '  — '  Are  you  willing  to 
be  like  Him  who  had  not  where  to  lay  his 
head  ? '  — '  Can  ye  be  baptized  with  the  bap- 
tism that  He  is  baptized  with  V  If  then  this 
effeminate  one  is  not  roused  to  a  more 
Christ-like  life  by  the  uncovering  of  his 
hypocrisy,  what  a  sickly  murmuring  of 
self-reproach  fills  his  heart  at  the  collapse 
of  that  prayer ! 

Such  is  human  nature ;  such,  but  by  the 


30  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

grace  of  God,  are  we  all.  We  must  be  dull 
inspectors  of  our  own  hearts,  if  we  have 
never  discerned  there,  lurking  beneath  the 
level  at  which  sin  breaks  out  into  overt 
crime,  some  single  offence  —  an  offence 
of  feeling,  an  offence  of  habit  in  thought, 
which  for  a  time  has  spread  its  infection 
over  the  whole  character  of  our  devotions. 
We  have  been  self-convicted  of  falsehood  in 
prayer ;  for,  though  praying  in  the  full 
dress  of  sound  words,  we  did  not  desire 
that  our  supplications  should  be  heard  at 
the  expense  of  that  one  idol. 

Perhaps  that  single  sin  has  woven  itself 
like  a  web  over  large  spaces  of  our  life. 
It  may  have  run  like  a  shuttle  to  and  fro  in 
the  texture  of  some  plan  of  life,  on  which 
our  conscience  has  not  glared  fiercely  as 
upon  a  crime,  because  the  usage  of  the 
world  has  blindfolded  conscience  by  the 
respectability  of  such  sin.  Yet  it  has  beeh 
all  the  while  tightening  its  folds  around  US| 


DEJECTION  NO   MYSTERY.  31 

repressing  our  liberty  in  prayer,  stopping 
the  life-blood  and  stiffening  the  fibre  of 
our  moral  being,  till  we  are  like  kneeling 
corpses  in  our  worship. 

That  is  a  deceptive  notion  which  attrib- 
utes the  want  of  unction  in  prayer  to  an 
arbitrary,  or  even  inexplicable,  withdraw- 
ment  of  God  from  the  soul.  Aside  from 
the  operation  of  physical  causes,  where  is 
the  warrant,  in  reason  or  revelation,  for 
ascribing  joylessness  in  prayer  to  any  other 
cause  than  some  wrong  in  the  soul  itself? 
What  says  an  old  prophet  ?  '  Behold,  the 
Lord's  ear  is  not  heavy  that  it  cannot  hear. 
But  your  iniquities  have  separated  between 
you  and  your  God.  Your  sins  have  hid  his 
face  from  you.  Therefore^  we  wait  for  light, 
but  behold  obscurity ;  for  brightness,  but 
we  walk  in  darkness.  We  grope  for  the 
wall  like  the  blind;  we  grope,  as  if  we 
had  no  eyes ;  we  stumble  at  noonday  as  in 
the  night;   we  are    in   desolate  places,  as 


32  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

dead  men.'  Could  words  describe  more 
truthfully,  or  explain  more  philosophically, 
that  phenomenon  of  religious  experience 
which  we  call  the  '  hiding  of  God's  counte- 
nance ? ' 

It  does  not  require  what  the  world  pro- 
nounces a  great  sin,  to  break  up  the  seren- 
ity of  the  soul  in  its  devotional  hours.  The 
experience  of  prayer  has  delicate  complica- 
tions. A  little  thing,  secreted  there,  may 
dislocate  its  mechanism  and  arrest  its  move- 
ment. The  spirit  of  prayer  is  to  the  soul 
what  the  eye  is  to  the  body,  —  the  eye,  so 
limpid  in  its  nature,  of  such  fine  finish  and 
such  intricate  convolution  in  its  structure, 
and  of  so  sensitive  nerve,  that  the  point  of 
a  needle  may  excruciate  it,  and  make  it 
weep  itself  away. 

Even  a  doubtful  principle  of  life,  har- 
bored in  the  heart,  is  perilous  to  the  peace- 
fulness  of  devotion.  May  not  many  of  u^ 
find  the  cause  of  our  joylessness  in  prayer, 


SUSPENSE   OF   CONSCIENCE.  33 

in  the  fact  that  we  are  living  upon  some 
unsettled  principles  of  conduct  ?  We  are 
assuming  the  rectitude  of  courses  of  life, 
with  which  we  are  not  ourselves  honestly 
satisfied.  I  apprehend  that  there  is  very- 
much  of  suspense  of  conscience  among 
Christians  upon  subjects  of  practical  life, 
on  which  there  is  no  suspense  of  action. 
Is  there  not  a  pretty  large  cloud-land  cov- 
ered by  the  usages  of  Christian  society  ? 
And  may  not  some  of  us  find  there  the  sin 
wliich  infects  our  devotions  with  nauseous 
incense  ? 

Possibly  our  hearts  are  shockingly  de^ 
ceitful  in  such  iniquity.  Are  we  strangers 
to  an  experience  like  this — that  when  we 
mourn  over  our  cold  prayers  as  a  misfor- 
tune, we  evade  a  search  of  that  disputed 
territory  for  the  cause  of  them,  through  fear 
that  we  shall  find  it  there,  and  we  struggle 
to  satisfy  ourselves  with  an  increase  of  spir- 
itual duties  which  shall  cost  us  no  sacrifice  ? 


84  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

Are  we  never  sensible  of  resisting  the  hints 
which  the  Holy  Spirit  gives  us  in  parables, 
by  refusing  to  look  that  way  for  the  secret  of 
our  deadness — saying,  *  Not  that!  Oh  no, 
not  that !     But  let  us  pray  more '  ? 

Many  a  doubtful  principle  in  a  Christian 
mind,  if  once  set  in  the  focus  of  a  con- 
science illumined  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  would 
resolve  itself  into  a  sin,  for  which  that 
Christian  would  turn  and  look  up  guiltily 
to  the  Master,  and  then  go  out  and  weep 
bitterly. 


IV. 


WHAT   PROFIT  SHOULD   WE   HAVE   IF   WE  PRAY  UNTO 
HIM  ?  _  Job  21 :  15. 

The  great  majority  of  us  have  ]iit\Q  faith 
in  prayer.  This  is  one  of  those  causes  which 
may  produce  a  habit  of  mind  in  devotion, 
resembling  that  of  impenitent  prayer,  and 
yet  distinguishable  from  it,  and  coexistent, 
often,  with  some  degree  of  genuine  piety. 
Christians  often  have  little  faith  in  prayer 
as  a  power  in  real  life.  They  do  not  em- 
brace cordially,  in  feeling  as  well  as  in  the- 
ory, the  truth  which  underlies  the  entire 
scriptural  conception  and  illustration  of 
prayer,  that  it  is  literally,  actually,  posi- 
tively, effectually,  a  means  of  power. 

Singular  as  it  may  appear,  the  fact  is 
indisputable,  that  Christian  practice  is  often 


36  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

at  a  discount  by  the  side  of  heathen  habits 
of  devotion.  Heathen  prayer,  whatever 
else  it  is  or  is  not,  is  a  reality  in  the 
heathen  idea.  A  pagan  suppliant  has  faith 
in  prayer,  as  he  understands  it.  Grovelling 
as  his  notion  of  it  is,  such  as  it  is  he  means 
it.  He  trusts  it  as  an  instrument  of  power. 
He  expects  to  accomplish  something  by 
praying. 

When  Ethelred,  the  Saxon  king  of  Nor- 
thumberland, invaded  Wales,  and  was  about 
to  give  battle  to  the  Britons,  he  observed 
near  the  enemy  a  host  of  unarmed  men. 
He  inquired  who  they  were,  and  what  they 
were  doing.  He  was  told  that  they  were 
monks  of  Bangor,  praying  for  the  success 
of  their  countrymen.  'Then,'  said  the 
heathen  prince,  '  they  have  begun  the  fight 
against  us;  attack  them ^rs^.' 

So  any  unperverted  mind  will  conceive 
of  the  scriptural  idea  of  prayer,  as  that  qf/ 
one  of  the  most  downright,  sturdy  realities 


PRAYER   A   POWER.  37 

in  the  universe.  Right  in  the  heart  of 
God's  plan  of  government  it  is  lodged  as 
a  power.  Amidst  the  conflicts  which  are 
going  on  in  the  evolution  of  that  plan,  it 
stands  as  a  power.  Into  all  the  intricacies 
of  Divine  working  and  the  mysteries  of 
Divine  decree,  it  reaches  out  silently  as  a 
power.  In  the  mind  of  God,  we  may  be 
assured,  the  conception  of  prayer  is  no 
fiction,  whatever  man  may  think  of  it. 

It  has,  and  God  has  determined  that  it 
should  have,  a  positive  and  an  appreciable 
influence  in  directing  the  course  of  a  hu- 
man life.  It  is,  and  God  has  purposed  that 
it  should  be,  a  link  of  connection  between 
human  mind  and  Divine  mind,  by  which, 
through  His  infinite  condescension,  we  may 
actually  move  His  will.  It  is,  and  God 
has  decreed  that  it  should  be,  a  power  in 
the  universe,  as  distinct,  as  real,  as  natu- 
ral, and  as  uniform,  as  the  power  of  gravi- 
tation, or  of  light,  or  of  electricity.     A  man 


38  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

may  use  it,  as  trustingly  and  as  soberly  fim 
he  would  use  either  of  these.  It  is  as  truly 
the  dictate  of  good  sense,  that  a  man  should 
expect  to  achieve  something  by  praying,  as 
it  is  that  he  should  expect  to  achieve  some- 
thing by  a  telescope,  or  the  mariner's  com- 
pass, or  the  electric  telegraph. 

This  intense  practicalness  characterizes 
the  scriptural  ideal  of  prayer.  The  Scrip- 
tures make  it  a  reality,  and  not  a  reverie. 
They  never  bury  it  in  the  notion  of  a  poetic 
or  philosophic  contemplation  of  God.  They 
do  not  merge  it  in  the  mental  fiction  of 
prayer  by  action  in  any  other  or  all  other 
duties  of  life.  They  have  not  concealed  the 
fact  of  prayer  beneath  the  mystery  of  prayer. 
The  scriptural  utterances  on  the  subject  of 
prayer  admit  of  no  such  reduction  of  tone, 
and  confusion  of  sense,  as  men  often  put 
forth  in  imitating  them.  Up,  on  the  level 
of  inspired  thought,  p'ayer  is  prayer  —  a 
distinct,  unique,   elemental   power  in  the 


HOPE   IN   PRAYER.  39 

Spiritual  universe,  as  pervasive  and  as  con- 
stant as  the  great  occult  powers  of  Nature. 

The  want  of  trust  in  this  scriptural  ideal 
of  prayer,  often  neutralizes  it,  even  in  the 
experience  of  a  Christian.  The  result  can- 
not be  otherwise.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of 
mind. 

Observe,  for  a  moment,  the  philosophy  of 
this.  Mind  is  so  made,  that  it  needs  the 
hope  of  gaining  an  object,  as  an  inducement 
to  effort.  Even  so  simple  an  effort  as  that 
involved  in  the  utterance  of  desire,  no  man 
will  make  persistently,  with  no  hope  of 
gaining  an  object.  Despair  of  an  object  is 
speechless.  So,  if  you  wish  to  enjoy  prayer, 
you  must  first  form  to  yourself  such  a  the- 
ory of  prayer,  —  or,  if  you  do  not  con- 
sciously form  it,  you  must  have  it,  —  and 
then  you  must  cherish  such  trust  in  it,  as 
a  reality,  that  you  shall  feel  the  force  of  an 
object  in  prayer.  No  mjud  can  feel  that  it 
has  an  object  in  praying,  except  in   such 


40  THE   STILL  HOUK. 

degree  as  it  appreciates  the  scriptural  Yieis 
of  prayer  as  a  genuine  thing. 

Our  conviction  on  this  point  must  he  as 
definite  and  as  fixed  as  our  trust  in  the 
evidence  of  our  senses.  It  must  become 
as  natural  to  us  to  obey  one  as  the  other. 
If  we  suffer  our  faith  to  drop  down  from 
the  lofty  conception  of  prayer  as  having  a 
lodgment  in  the  very  counsels  of  God,  by 
which  the  universe  is  swayed,  the  plain 
practicalness  of  prayer  as  the  Scriptures 
teach  it,  and  as  prophets  and  apostles  and 
our  Lord  himself  performed  it,  drops  pro- 
portionately ;  and  in  that  proportion,  our 
motive  to  prayer  dwindles.  Of  necessity, 
then,  our  devotions  become  spiritless.  We 
cannot  obey  such  faith  in  prayer,  with  any 
more  heart  than  a  man  who  is  afflicted  with 
double  vision  can  feel  in  obeying  the  evi- 
dence of  his  eyes.  Our  supplications  can- 
not, under  the  impulse  of  such  a  faith,  go^ 
as  one  has  expressed  it,  Mn  a  right  line 


THE   STILL   HOTJK.  41 

to  God.'  They  become  circuitous,  timid, 
heartless.  They  may  so  degenerate  as  to 
be  offensive, '  like  the  reekings  of  the  Dead 
Sea.' 


V. 


AS  A  PRINCE  HAST   THOU  POWER   WITH   GOD. 

Gen.  32 :  28. 

A.N  intrepid  faith  in  prayer  will  always 
gire  it  unction.  Let  the  faith  of  apostles  in 
the  reality  of  prayer  as  a  power  with  God 
take  possession  of  a  regenerate  heart,  and  it 
is  inconceivable  that  prayer  should  be  to 
that  heart  a  lifeless —  duty.  The  joy  of 
hope,  at  least,  will  vitalize  the  duty.  The 
prospect  of  gaining  an  object,  will  always 
affect  thus  the  expression  of  intense  desire. 

The  feeling  which  will  become  spontane- 
ous with  a  Christian,  under  the  influence 
of  such  a  trust,  is  this :  '  I  come  to  m, 
devotions  this  morning,  on  an  errand  of 
real  life.     This  is  no  romance  and  no  farc^ 


PKAYER  A   BUSINESS.  43 

I  do  not  come  here  to  go  through  a  form 
of  words.  I  have  no  hopeless  desires  to 
express.  I  have  an  object  to  gain.  I  have 
an  end  to  accomplish.  This  is  a  business 
in  which  I  am  about  to  engage.  An  astron- 
omer does  not  turn  his  telescope  to  the 
skies  with  a  more  reasonable  hope  of  pene- 
trating those  distant  heavens,  than  I  have 
of  reaching  the  mind  of  God,  by  lifting  up 
my  heart  at  the  throne  of  Grace.  This  is 
the  privilege  of  my  calling  of  God  in  Christ 
Jesus.  Even  my  faltering  voice  is  now  to 
be  heard  in  heaven,  and  it  is  to  put  forth  a 
power  there,  the  results  of  which  only  God 
can  know,  and  only  eternity  can  develop. 
Therefore,  0  Lord !  thy  servant  findeth  it  ia 
his  heart  to  pray  this  prayer  unto  Thee.' 

'Good  prayers,'  says  an  old  English  di- 
vine, *  never  come  weeping  home.  I  am 
sure  I  shall  receive  either  what  I  ask  or 
what  I  should  ask.'  Such  a  habit  of  feeling 
as  this  will    give  to  prayer  that  quality 


44  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

which  Dr.  Chalmers  observed  as  being  the 
characteristic  of  the  prayers  of  Doddridge, 
—  that  they  had  an  intensely  '  business-like' 
spirit. 

Observe  how  thoroughly  this  spirit  is 
infused  into  the  scriptural  representation 
of  the  interior  working  of  prayer  ii^  the 
counsels  of  God,  respecting  the  prophet 
Daniel.  The  narrative  is  intelligible  to  a 
child ;  yet  scarcely  another  passage  in  the 
Bible  is  so  remarkable,  in  its  bearing  upon 
the  difficulties  which  our  minds  often  gen- 
erate out  of  the  mystery  of  prayer.  Almost 
the  very  mechanism  of  the  plan  of  God,  by 
which  this  invisible  power  enters  into  the 
execution  of  His  decrees,  is  here  laid  open. 

'  While  I  was  speaking,'  the  prophet  says, 
*  Gabriel,  being  caused  to  fly  swiftly,  touched 
me,  and  said,  "  0  Daniel,  at  the  beginning 
of  thy  supplication,  the  commandment  came 
forth,  and  I  am  come  to  show  thee ;  fbr^ 
thou  art  greatly  beloved." '     What  greater 


PRAYER   OF   DANIEL.  i5 

vividness  could  be  given  to  the  rea^^/  of 
prayer,  even  to  its  occult  operation  upon 
the  Divine  decrees?  No  sooner  do  the 
words  of  supplication  pass  out  from  the  lips, 
than  the  command  is  given  to  one  of  the 
presence-angels,  '  Go  thou ; '  and  he  flies 
swiftly  to  the  prostrate  suppliant,  and 
touches  him  bodily,  and  talks  with  him 
audibly,  and  assures  him  that  his  desire  is 
given  to  him.  '  I  am  come  to  thee,  0  man 
greatly  beloved ;  I  am  commissioned  to 
instruct  and  to  strengthen  thee.  I  was 
delayed  in  my  journey  to  thee,  else  I  had 
come  more  speedily  to  thy  relief;  for  one 
and  twenty  days  the  prince  of  Persia  with- 
stood me ;  but  Michael  came  to  help  me  ; 
the  archangel  is  leagued  with  me  to  execute 
the  response  to  thy  cry.  /  must  return  to 
fight  that  prince  of  Persia  who  would  have 
restrained  me  from  thee ;  unto  thee  am  I 
sent.  From  the  first  day  that  thou  didst 
set.  thy  heart  to  chasten  thyself  before  thy 


46  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

God,  thy  words  were  heard ;  and  I  am  com^ 
because  of  thy  words.  Again  I  say,  0  man 
greatly  beloved  1  fear  not ;  peace  be  unto 
thee ;  be  strong,  yea,  be  strong.'  Could  any 
diagram  of  the  working  of  prayer  amidst 
the  purposes  of  God,  give  to  it  a  more  vivid 
reality  in  our  conceptions,  than  it  receives 
from  this  little  passage  of  dramatic  narra- 
tive, which  you  will  find,  in  substance,  in 
the  ninth  and  tenth  chapters  of  the  prophecy 
of  Daniel? 

I  have  sometimes  tried  to  conceive  a  pan- 
orama of  the  history  of  one  prayer.  I  have 
endeavored  to  follow  it  from  its  inception 
in  a  human  mind,  through  its  utterance  by 
human  lips ;  and  in  its  flight  up  to  the  ear 
of  Him  who  is  its  Hearer  because  He  has 
been  also  its  Inspirer ;  and  on  its  journey 
around  to  the  unnumbered  points  in  the 
organism  of  His  decrees  which  this  feeble 
human  voice  reaches,  and  from  which  it 
entices  a  responsive  vibration,  because  thi^ 


MYSTERY   OP  PRAYBB.  47 

also  is  a  decree  of  as  venerable  antiquity  as 
theirs  ;  and  in  its  return  from  those  alti- 
tudes, with  its  golden  train  of  blessings  to 
which  eternal  counsels  have  paid  tribute,  at 
His  bidding.  I  have  endeavored  to  form 
some  conception  thus,  of  the  methods  by 
which  this  omnipotence  of  poor  human 
speech  gains  its  end,  without  a  shock  to  the 
system  of  the  universe,  with  not  so  much  as 
a  whit  of  change  to  the  course  of  a  leaf 
falling  in  the  air.  But  how  futile  is  the 
strain  upon  these  puny  faculties !  How 
shadowy  are  the  thoughts  we  get  from  any 
such  attempt  to  master  prayer !  Do  we  not 
fall  back  with  glad  relief  upon  the  magni- 
tude of  this  fact  of  prayer, '  beyond  the  stars 
heard,'  and  answered  through  these  minis- 
tries of  angels  ? 

Human  art  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  ex- 
tending the  electric  telegraph  around  one 
globe.  The  combined  science  and  skill  and 
wealth  of  the  nations  have  failed  thus  to 


48  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

■connect  the  two  continents.  But  yonder  is 
a  child,  whose  lisping  tongue  is  every  day 
doing  more  than  that.  In  God's  admin- 
istration of  things,  that  child's  morning 
prayer  is  a  mightier  reality  than  that.  It 
sets  in  motion  agencies  more  secret,  and 
more  impalpable,  and  yet  conscious  agen- 
cies, whose  chief  vocation,  so  far  as  we 
know  it,  is  to  minister  at  that  child's  bid- 
ding. 'Yerily  I  say  unto  you,  that  in 
heaven  their  angels  do  always  behold  the 
face  of  my  Father  who  is  in  heaven.'  Could 
we  appreciate  prayer,  think  you,  as  such  a 
reality,  such  a  power,  so  genuine,  so  vital  a 
thing  in  the  working  of  the  Divine  plan,  so 
free  from  trammel  in  its  mystery,  so  much 
resembling  the  power  of  God  because  of  its 
mystery,  and  yet  could  we  find  it  to  be  in 
our  own  experience  an  insipid  - —  duty  ? 


>^ 


VI. 


AS  THE  HART  PANTETH  AFTER  THE   WATER-BROOKS. 

Ps.  42 :  L 


We  lose  many  prayers  for  the  want  of 
two  things  which  support  each  other, -- 
specifieness  of  object,  and  intensity/  of  desire. 
One's  interest  in  such  an  exercise  as  this,  is 
necessarily  dependent  on  the  coexistence  of 
these  qualities. 

In  the  diary  of  Dr.  Chalmers,  we  find 
recorded  this  petition  :  '  Make  me  sensible 
of  real  answers  to  actual  requests,  as  evi- 
dences of  an  interchange  between  myself  on 
earth  and  my  Saviour  in  heaven.'  Under 
the  sway  of  intense  desires,  our  minds  natu- 
rally long  to  individualize  thus  the  parties, 

4 


50  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

the  petitions,  the  objects,  and  the  results  of 
prayer. 

Sir  Fowell  Buxton  writes  as  follows : 
'  When  I  am  out  of  heart,  I  follow  David^s 
example,  and  fly  for  refuge  to  prayer,  and 
he  furnishes  me  with  a  store  of  prayer. 
*  *  *  I  am  bound  to  acknowledge  that 
I  have  always  found  that  my  prayers  have 
been  heard  and  answered  j  *  *  *  *  i^ 
almost  every  instance  I  have  received  what 
I  have  asked  for.  *  *  *  Hence,  I  feel 
permitted  to  offer  up  my  prayers  for  every- 
thing that  concerns  me.  *  *  *  j  ^m 
inclined  to  imagine  that  there  are  no  little 
things  with  God.  His  hand  is  as  manifest 
in  the  feathers  of  a  butterfly's  wing,  in  the 
eye  of  an  insect,  in  the  folding  and  packing 
of  a  blossom,  in  the  curious  aqueducts  by 
which  a  leaf  is  nourished,  as  in  the  crea> 
tion  of  a  world,  and  in  the  laws  by  which 
planets  move.  I  understand  literally  the--^ 
Injimction  :  "In  everything  make  youi"  re^ 


SIR   FOWELL   BUXTON.  61 

quests  known  unto  God;"  and  I  cannot  but 
notice  how  amply  these  prayers  have  been 
met.' 

Again,  writing  to  his  daughter  on  the 
subject  of  a  '  division '  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  in  the  conflict  for  West  Indian 
Emancipation,  he  says  :  *  What  led  to  that 
division  ?  If  ever  there  was  a  subject  which 
occupied  our  prayers,  it  was  this.  Do  you 
remember  how  we  desired  that  God  would 
give  me  His  Spirit  in  that  emergency  :  how 
we  quoted  the  promise,  "He  that  lacketh 
wisdom,  let  him  ask  it  of  the  Lord,  and  it 
shall  be  given  him"  :  and  how  I  kept  open 
that  passage  in  the  Old  Testament,  in  which 
it  is  said,  "  We  have  no  might  against  this 
great  company  that  cometh  against  us, 
neither  know  we  what  to  do,  but  our  eyes 
are  upon  Thee"  —  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
replying,  "Be  not  afraid  nor  dismayed  by 
reason  of  this  great  multitude,  for  the  battle 
is  not  yours,  but  God's."  ?    If  you  want  to 


52  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

see  the  passage,  open  my  Bible  ;  it  will  turn 
of  itself  to  the  place.  I  sincerely  believe 
that  prayer  was  the  cause  of  that  division ; 
and  I  am  confirmed  in  this,  by  knowing 
that  we  by  no  means  calculated  on  the 
effect.  The  course  we  took  appeared  to  be 
right,  and  wq  followed  it  blindly.^ 

In  these  examples  is  illustrated,  in  real 
life,  the  working  of  these  two  forces  in  a 
spirit  of  prayer,  which  must  naturally  exist 
or  die  together,  —  intensity  of  desire,  and 
specificness  of  object. 

Let  a  man  define  to  his  own  mind  an 
object  of  prayer,  and  then  let  him  be  moved 
by  desires  for  that  object  which  impel  him 
to  pray,  because  he  cannot  otherwise  satisfy 
the  irrepressible  longings  of  his  soul ;  let 
him  have  such  desires  as  shall  lead  him  to 
search  out,  and  dwell  upon,  and  treasure 
in  his  heart,  and  return  to  again,  and  ap- 
propriate to  himself  anew,  the  encourage^ 
ments  to  prayer,  till  his  Bible  opens  of  itself 


LANGUID    DESIRES.  63 

^o  the  right  places  —  and  think  you  that 
9uch  a  man  will  have  occasion  to  go  to  his 
closet,  or  come  from  it,  with  the  sickly  cry, 
'  Why,  oh  !  why  is  my  intercourse  with  God 
so  irksome  to  me  ? '  Such  a  man  must  ex- 
perience, at  least,  the  joy  of  uttering  hope- 
fully emotions  which  become  painful  by 
repression. 

On  the  contrary,  let  a  man's  objects  of 
thought  at  the  throne  of  Grace  be  vague, 
and  let  his  desires  be  languid,  and  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  his  prayers  must  be  both 
languid  and  vague.  Says  Jeremy  Taylor : 
'  Easiness  of  desire  is  a  great  enemy  to  the 
success  of  a  good  man's  prayer.  It  must  be 
an  intent,  zealous,  busy,  operative  prayer. 
For,  consider  what  a  huge  indecency  it  is, 
that  a  man  should  speak  to  God  for  a  thing 
that  he  values  not.  Our  prayers  upbraid  our 
spirits,  when  we  beg  tamely  for  those  things 
for  which  we  ought  to  die  ;  which  are  more 
precious  than  imperial  sceptres,  richer  than 


64,  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

the  Spoils  of  the  sea,  or  the  treasures  of 
Indian  hills.' 

The  scriptural  examples  of  prayer  have, 
most  of  them,  an  unutterable  intensity. 
They  are  pictures  of  struggles^  in  which 
more  of  suppressed  desire  is  hinted  than 
that  which  is  ea;pressed.  Recall  the  wrest- 
ling of  Jacob,  — '  I  will  not  let  thee  go  ex- 
cept thou  bless  me  ; '  and  the  '  panting '  and 

*  pouring  out  of  soul '  of  David,  — '  I  cried 
day  and  night ;  my  throat  is  dried :  *  *  I 
wait  for  my  God;'  and  the  importunity  of 
the  Syro-Phenician  woman,  with  her 'Yes, 
Lord,  yet  the  dogs  under  the  table  eat  of  the 
children's  crumbs  ; '  and  the  persistency  of 
Bartimeus,  crying  out  '  the  more  a  great 
deal,'  *Have  mercy  on  me  ;'  and  the  strong 
crying  and  tears  of  our  Lord,  *If  it  be 
possible  —  if  it  be  possible!'     There  is  no 

*  easiness  of  desire'  here. 

The  scriptural  examples  of  prayer,  alsjy, 
%re  clear  as  light  in  their  objects  of  thought. 


VAGUENESS   OF  THOUGHT.  55 

Even  those  which  are  calm  and  sweet,  like 
the  Lord's  prayer,  have  few  and  sharply 
defined  subjects  of  devotion.  They  are  not 
discursive  and  voluminous,  like  many  unin- 
spired forms  of  supplication.  They  do  not 
range  over  everything  at  once.  They  have 
no  vague  expressions  ;  they  are  crystalline  ; 
a  child  need  not  read  them  a  second  time 
to  understand  them.  As  uttered  by  their 
authors,  they  were  in  no  antiquated  phrase- 
ology ;  they  were  in  the  fresh  forms  of  a 
living  speech.  They  were,  and  were  meant 
to  be,  the  channels  of  living  thoughts  and 
living  hearts. 

Let  a  man,  then,  be  negligent  of  both 
scriptural  example  and  the  nature  of  his 
own  mind  ;  let  him  approach  God  with  both 
vagueness  of  thought  and  languor  of  emo- 
tion ;  and  what  else  can  his  prayer  be,  but 
a  weariness  to  himself  and  an  abomination 
to  God?  It  would  be  a  miracle,  if  such 
a  suppliant  should  enjoy  success  in  prefer. 


66  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

He  cannot  succeed,  he  cannot  have  jo^, 
because  he  has  no  object  that  elicits  intense 
desire,  and  no  desire  that  sharpens  his  ob- 
ject. He  has  no  great,  holy,  penetrative 
thought  in  him,  which  stirs  up  his  sensibili- 
ties ;  and  no  deep,  swelling  sensibility,  there- 
fore, to  relieve  by  prayer.  His  soul  is  not 
reached  by  anything  he  is  thinking  about, 
and,  therefore,  he  has  no  soul  to  pour  out 
before  God.  Such  a  man  prays  because  he 
thinks  he  must  pray ;  not  because  he  is 
grateful  to  God  that  he  may  pray.  There  is 
an  unspeakable  difference  between  '  must ' 
and  'may.'  It  is  his  conscience  that  prays  ; 
it  is  not  his  heart.  His  language  is  the 
language  of  his  conscience.  He  prays  in 
words  which  ought  to  express  his  heart,  not 
in  those  which  do  express  it.  Hence  arises 
that  experience,  so  distressful  to  an  ingenu- 
ous mind,  in  which  devotion  is  prompted  by 
no  vividness  of  conception,  rolling  up-^ 
force  of  sensibility  to  the  level  of  the  lips, 


CONSCIENCE  IN  PRAYER.  57 

SO  that  it  can  flow  forth  in  childlike,  hon- 
est speech. 

Such  an  experience,  so  far  from  render- 
ing prayer  a  joy  either  sweet  and  placid,  or 
ecstatic,  can  only  cause  the  time  spent  in 
the  closet  to  be  the  season  of  periodical  tor- 
ture to  a  sensitive  conscience,  like  that  of  a 
victim  daily  stretched  on  a  rack.  For  it  is 
in  such  prayer,  that  such  a  conscience  is 
most  vehement  in  its  reproaches,  and  guilt 
seems  to  be  heaped  up  most  rapidly.  Oh, 
wretched  man  that  he  is !  Who  shall  de- 
liver him? 


VII. 


THAT  DISCIPLE  WHOM  JESUS  LOVED. 

J0HM21: 


Some  Christians  do  not  cultivate  the  temr 
perament  of  prayer.  Devout  joy  is  more 
facile  to  some  temperaments  than  to  others ; 
yet,  in  all,  it  is  susceptible  of  culture.  Es- 
pecially is  it  true,  that  prayer  is  in  its 
nature  emotive.  It  is  an  expression  of  feel- 
ing :  not  necessarily  of  tumultuous  feeling, 
but  naturally  of  profound  and  fluent  feel- 
ing, and,  in  its  most  perfect  type,  of  habitual 
feeling.  To  enjoy  prayer,  we  must  be  n^sed 
to  it.  Therefore,  we  must  be  used  to  the 
sensibility  of  which  it  is  the  expression. 
Devotion  should  spring  up  spontaneously 
firom  an  emotive  states  rather  than  be  forced 


TEMPERAMENT    OF   PRAYER.  69 

out  in  jets   of  sensibility,  on   great   occa- 
sions. 

The  necessity  of  this  is  often  overlooked 
by  Christians,  whose  lives,  in  other  respects, 
are  not  visibly  defective.  They  do  not 
possess  desires  which  may  very  naturally 
be  expressed  in  prayer.  They  have  no  deep 
subsoil  of  feeling  from  which  prayer  would 
be  a  natural  growth.  The  religion  of  some 
of  us  —  whatever  may  be  true  of  our  oppo- 
sites  in  temperament  —  is  not  sufficiently  a 
religion  of  emotion.  We  have  not  suffi- 
ciently cherished  our  Christian  sensibilities. 
We  have  not  cultivated  habits  of  religious 
desire,  which  are  buoyant  in  their  working. 
We  have  not  so  trained  our  hearts,  that  a 
certain  emotive  current  is  always  ebullient, 
welling  up  from  the  depths  of  the  soul,  like 
the  springs  of  the  deepest  sea.  We  think 
more  than  we  believe.  We  believe  more 
than  we  have  faith  in.  Our  faith  is  too 
calm,  too  cool,  too  sluggish.     Our  theory 


60  THE    STILL    HOUR. 

of  the  Christian  life  is  that  of  a  clear,  erect, 
inflexible  head,  not  of  a  great  heart  in 
which  deep  calleth  unto  deep. 

This  clear-headed  type  of  piety  has  invalu- 
able uses,  if  it  be  tempered  with  meekness, 
with  gentleness,  with  'bowels  of  mercies.' 
But  we  must  confess,  that  it  does  not  always 
bear  well  the  drill  which  the  world  gives  it 
in  selfish  usage.  It  too  often  grows  hard, 
solid,  icy.  It  reminds  one  of  the  man  with 
a '  cold  heart,'  whose  blood  never  ran  warm, 
whose  eye  was  always  glassy,  whose  touch 
was  always  clammy,  and  whose  breath  was 
always  like  an  east  wind.  Such  a  religious 
temperament  as  this,  will  never  do  for  the 
foundation  of  a  life  of  joy  in  communion 
with  God.  We  must  have  more  of  the  ear- 
nest nature  of  the  loved  disciple,  more  of 
the  spirit  of  the  visions  of  Patmos. 

Our  Northern  and  Occidental  constitution 
often  needs  to  be  restrained  from  an  excess 
of  phlegmatic  wisdom.     I  must  think,  that 


ORIENTAL    DEVOTION.  61 

we  have  something  to  learn  from  the  more 
impulsive  working  of  the  Southern  and  the 
Oriental  mind.  I  must  believe,  that  it  was 
not  without  a  wise  forecast  of  the  world's 
necessities,  and  an  insight  into  human  na- 
ture all  around^  that  God  ordained  that  the 
Bible,  which  should  contain  our  best  models 
of  sanctified  culture,  should  be  constructed 
in  the  East,  and  by  the  inspiration  of  minds 
of  an  Eastern  stock  and  discipline ;  whose 
imaginative  faculty  could  conceive  such  a 
poem  as  the  Song  of  Solomon ;  and  whose 
emotive  nature  could  be  broken  up  like  the 
fountains  of  a  great  deep.  I  must  anticipate, 
that  an  improved  symmetry  of  character 
will  be  imparted  to  the  experience  of  the 
church,  and  more  of  the  beauty  of  holiness 
will  adorn  her  courts,  when  the  Oriental 
world  shall  be  converted  to  Christ,  and 
Ethiopia  shall  stretch  out  her  hands  unto 
God.  Our  unimpassioned,  taciturn,  and 
often  cloudy  temperament  in  religion,  does 


62  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

need  an  infusion  of  the  piety  which  will 
grow  up  in  those  lands  of  the  sun. 

Such  an  infusion  of  the  Oriental  life-blood 
into  the  stock  of  our  Christian  experience, 
would  bring  us  into  closer  sympathy  with 
the  types  of  sanctification  represented  in  the 
Scriptures.  It  would  be  like  streams  from 
Lebanon  to  our  culture.  We  need  it,  to 
render  the  Psalms  of  David,  for  instance,  a 
natural  expression  of  our  devotions.  We 
need  a  culture  of  sensibility  which  shall  de- 
mand these  Psalms  as  a  medium  of  utterance. 

We  need  habits  of  feeling,  disciplined 
indeed,  not  effervescent,  not  mystic,  but,  on 
the  other  hand,  not  crushed,  not  fearful  of 
outflow,  not  bereaved  of  speech.  We  need 
a  sensitiveness  to  the  objects  of  our  faith, 
which  shall  create  desire  for  the  objects  of 
prayer,  not  passionate,  not  devoid  of  self- 
possession,  but  fluent  and  self-forgetful  in 
its  earnestness,  so  that  it  shall  have  more 
of  the  grace  of  a  child  in  its  outgoings. 


THE    STILL   HOUR.  63 

Of  such  an  experience,  intercourse  with 
God  in  prayer  would  be  the  necessary  ex- 
pression. It  could  find  no  other  so  fit. 
Joy  in  that  intercourse  would  be  like  the 
swellings  of  Jordan 


VIII 


YE  SAID  ALSO,    BEHOLD   WHAT   A   WEARINESS  IS  IT ! 

Mal.  1 :  13. 


We  offer  many  dead  prayers,  through 
mental  indolence.  This  fact  is  often  forgot- 
ten, that  prayer  is  one  of  the  most  spiritual 
of  the  duties  of  religion,  spiritual  as  distinct 
from  corporeal.  It  is  the  communion  of  a 
spiritual  soul  with  a  spiritual  God.  God 
calls  himself  the  Former^  oi^ly?  of  o^ir  bodies, 
but  the  Father  of  our  spirits.  So  prayer, 
to  be  a  filial  intercourse  with  Him,  must  be 
abstract  from  sensation.  Do  we  not  natu- 
rally seek  darkness  in  our  devotions  ?  Why 
is  it,  that  to  pray  with  open  eyes  seems 
either  heartless  or  ghastly  ?  So,  too,  do  we^ 
seek  stillness  and  solitude.    Only  a  Pharisee 


mTELLECT   IN   PRAYER.  65 

can  pray  at  the  corner  of  a  street.  A  truly 
devout  spirit  learns  to  sing  from  its  own 
experience  — 

'  Blest  is  the  tranquil  hour  of  mom, 

And  blest  that  hour  of  solemn  eve. 
When,  on  the  wings  of  prayer  upborne. 
The  world  I  leave.* 

Physical  enjoyment  is  as  much  a  drag 
upon  the  spirit  of  worship  as  physical  pain. 
We  want  nothing  to  remind  us  of  our  cor- 
poreal being,  in  these  hours  of  communion 
with  Him  who  seeth  in  secret.  We  worship 
One  who  is  a  Spirit.  A  soul  caught  up  to 
the  third  heaven  in  devout  ecstasy,  cannot 
tell  whether  it  be  in  the  body  or  out  of  the 
body. 

These  well-known  phenomena  of  prayer 
suggest  its  purely  mental  character.  They 
involve,  also,  the  need  of  mental  exertion. 
'We  may  pray  with  the  intellect  without 
praying  with  the  heart ;  but  we  cannot  pray 

5 


66  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

with  the  heart  without  praying  with  the 
intellect.' 

True,  there  is,  as  we  shall  have  occasion 
to  observe,  a  state  of  devotional  culture 
which  may  render  prayer  habitually  sponta- 
neous, so  that  the  mind  shall  be  uncon- 
scious of  toil  in  it,  but  shall  spring  to  it 
rather  as  to  its  native  and  wonted  atmos- 
phere of  joy.  This  is  the  reward  of  prac- 
ticed effort  in  all  things.  But  who  can  num- 
ber the  struggles  with  a  wayward  spirit, 
which  must  create  that  high  deportment  in 
devotion  ? 

True,  there  may  be  hours  when  the 
mind  is  alert,  from  other  causes ;  when 
the  fountains  of  the  soul  are  unsealed  by 
a  great  sorrow,  or  a  great  deliverance  ; 
when  before  we  called,  God  has  heard  us, 
and  the  Spirit  now  helps  our  infirmities,  so 
that  thought  is  nimble,  sensibility  is  fluent, 
and  the  mouth  speaketh  out  of  the  Sun- 
dance of  the  heart.     Yet   such  unforseen 


SIMPLICITY   OF  PRAYER.  67 

and  gratuitous  aids  to  mental  elasticity, 
are  not  the  law  of  devotional  life.  In 
this,  as  in  other  things,  no  great  blessing 
is  given  thoughtlessly,  and  none  can  be 
received  thus.  The  law  of  blessing,  allies 
it  in  some  sort  with  struggles  of  our  own. 
True,  God's  condescension  is  nowhere 
more  conspicuous  than  in  His  hearing  of 
prayer.  No  ponderous  intellectual  machin- 
ery is  needful  to  its  dignity ;  no  loftiness  of 
reasoning,  no  magnificence  of  imagery,  no 
polish  of  diction ;  no  learning,  no  art,  no 
genius.  In  its  very  conception,  prayer  im- 
plies a  descent  of  the  Divine  Mind  to  the 
homes  of  men ;  and  with  no  design  to  lift 
men  up  out  of  the  sphere  of  their  lowliness, 
intellectually.  Bruised  reeds,  smoking  flax, 
broken  hearts,  dumb  sufferers,  the  slow  of 
speech,  timid  believers,  tempted  spirits, — 
weakness  in  all  its  varieties, — find  a  refuge 
in  that  thought  of  God,  which  nothing  else 
reveals  so  affectingly  as  the  gift  of  prayer. 


68  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

that  He  is  a  very  present  help  in  every 
time  of  trouble.  He  whom  the  heaven  of 
heavens  cannot  contain,  '  has  come  down 
and  placed  Himself  in  the  centre  of  the 
little  circle  of  human  ideas  and  affections,' 
as  if  for  the  purpose  of  making  our  '  relig- 
ion always  the  homestead  of  common  feel- 
ings.' It  has  been  debated  by  philoso- 
phers, whether  prayer  be  not  of  the  nature 
of  poetry.  Yet  poetry  has  seldom  attempted 
to  describe  prayer ;  and,  when  it  has  done 
so,  what  is  the  phraseology  in  which  it  has 
spoken  to  our  hearts  most  convincingly  ? 
Is  it  that  of  magnificent  and  transcendental 
speech  ?  No  ;  it  portrays  prayer  to  us  as 
only 

'  The  motion  of  a  hidden  fire 
That  trembles  in  the  breast/  — 

as  the  mere  *  burden  of  a  sigh,'  the  'fall- 
ing  of  a   tear,'    '  the.  upward   glancing   of 
an  eye,'  the  '  simplest  form  of  speech '  oaj 
'  infant  lips.' 


COLERIDGE.  69 

All  this  is  true,  and  no  idea  of  the  intel- 
lectuality of  prayer  should  be  entertained 
which  conflicts  with  this.  But  we  degrade 
the  dignity  of  God's  condescension,  if  we 
abuse  His  indulgence  of  our  weakness  to 
an  encouragement  of  our  indolence.  Must 
we  not  wince  under  the  rebuke  of  the 
preacher  at  Golden  Grove :  '  Can  we  ex- 
pect that  our  sins  can  be  washed  by  a  lazy 
prayer  ?  We  should  not  dare  to  thi'ow 
away  our  prayers  so,  like  fools '  ? 

Coleridge,  in  his  later  manhood,  expressed 
his  sorrow  at  having  written  so  shallow  a 
sentiment  on  the  subject  of  prayer,  as  that 
contained  in  one  of  his  youthful  poems,  in 
which,  speaking  of  God,  he  had  said  — 

*  Of  whose  all-seeing  eye 
Aught  to  demand  were  impotence  of  mind.' 

This  sentiment  he  so  severely  condemned, 
that  he  said  he  thought  the  act  of  praying 
to  be,  in  its  most  perfect  form,  the  very 


70  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

highest  energy  of  which  the  human  heart 
was  capable.  The  large  majority  of  worldly 
men,  and  of  learned  men,  he  pronounced 
incapable  of  executing  his  ideal  of  prayer. 

Many  scriptural  representations  of  the 
idea  of  devotion  come  up  fully  to  this 
mark.  The  prayer  of  a  righteous  man, 
that  availeth  much,  which  our  English 
Bible  so  infelicitously  describes  as  '  effec- 
tual, fervent,'  is  in  the  original  an  '  ener- 
getic '  prayer,  a  '  working '  prayer.  Some 
conception  of  the  inspired  thought  in  the 
epithet  may  be  derived  from  the  fact,  that 
the  same  word  is  elsewhere  used,  to  in- 
tensify the  description  of  the  power  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  a  renewed  heart.  Thus: 
'  According  to  the  power  that  worheth  in 
us,'  —  the  power  that  energizes  us  in  a  holy 
life  :  —  such  is  the  inspired  idea  of  a  good 
man's  prayer. 

What  else  is  the  force  of  the  frequency 
conjunction  of  '  watching '  and  '  praying,' 


ENERGY   IN  PRAYER.  71 

in  the  scriptural  style  of  exhortation  to 
the  duties  of  the  closet  ?  Thus  :  '  Watch 
and  pray,  '  watch  unto  prayer,'  *  praying 
always  and  watching,'  '  continue  in  prayer 
and  watch : '  there  is  no  mental  lassitude, 
no  self-indulgence  here.  It  was  a  lament 
of  the  prophet  over  the  degeneracy  of 
Grod's  people  :  ^  None  stirreth  himself  up 
to  take  hold  of  Thee.'  Paul  exhorts  the 
Romans  to  '  strive  together  with  him  in 
their  prayers,'  and  commends  an  ancient 
preacher  to  the  confidence  of  the  Colos- 
sians,  as  one  who  '  labored  fervently  in 
prayers.'  There  is  no  droning  or  drawling 
effort  here. 

Indeed,  what  need  have  we  of  more  sig- 
nificant teaching  on  this  point  than  our 
own  experience  ?  Setting  aside  as  excep- 
tional, emergencies  in  which  God  con- 
descends to  our  incapacity  of  great  mental 
exertion,  do  we  not  habitually  feel  the  need 
of  such  exertion  in  our  devotions  ?    Is  not 


72  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

even  a  painful  effort  of  intellect  often  need^ 
fill  to  recall  our  minds  from  secular  en- 
gagements, and  to  give  us  vivid  thoughts 
of  God  and  of  eternity  ?  I  do  not  assume 
that  this  ouglit  to  be  so,  or  need  be ;  I  speak 
of  what  ^«,  in  the  ordinary  life  of  Chris- 
tians. 

Prayer  can  have  no  intelligent  fervor, 
unless  the  objects  of  our  faith  are  repre- 
sented with  some  degree  of  vividness,  in  our 
conceptions  of  them.  But  this  is  a  pro- 
cess of  intellect.  As  we  must  have  clear 
thought  before  we  can  have  intelligent  feel- 
ing, so  must  we  have  vivid  thought  before 
we  can  have  profound  feeling.  But  this,  I 
repeat,  is  a  process  of  intellect. 

Yet,  do  we  not  often  come  to  the  hour 
and  place  of  prayer,  burdened  by  an  ex- 
hausted body ;  with  intellect  stupefied  by 
the  absorption  of  its  forces  in  the  plans,  the 
toils,  the  perplexities,  the  disappointment 
the  irritations  of  the  day  ?     How  wearily 


JEREMY   TAYLOR.  73 

do  we  often  drag  this  great  earthen  world 
behind  us,  into  the  presence  of  God !  Is 
not  our  first  petition,  often,  an  ejaculation 
for  the  ornament  of  a  meek  and  quiet 
spirit  ?  But,  in  such  a  state  of  body  and 
of  mind,  to  acquire  impressive  conceptions 
of  God  and  of  eternity,  is  an  intellectual 
change.  I  do  not  affirm  that  a  state  of 
intellect  is  all  that  is  involved  here  ;  but 
intellectual  change  is  indispensable  ;  and 
it  requires  exertion. 

On  this  topic,  what  can  the  man  do 
that  Cometh  after  the  King  ?  Let  us  hear 
Jeremy  Taylor  once  more.  His  description 
of  a  good  man's  prayer,  though  well  known, 
one  can  never  outgrow. 

*  Prayer  is  the  peace  of  our  spirit,  the 
stillness  of  our  thoughts,  the  evenness  of 
our  recollection,  the  seat  of  our  meditation, 
the  rest  of  our  cares,  and  the  calm  of  our 
tempest.  Prayer  is  the  issue  of  a  quiet 
mind,  of  untroubled   thoughts  ;   it  is   the 


74  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

daughter  of  charity  and  the  sister  of  meek- 
ness. He  that  prays  to  God  with  *  * 
a  troubled  and  discomposed  spirit,  is  like 
him  that  retires  into  a  battle  to  meditate, 
and  sets  up  his  closet  in  the  out-quarters 
of  an  army,  and  chooses  a  frontier  garrison 
to  be  wise  in. 

'  For  so  have  I  seen  a  lark  rising  from 
his  bed  of  grass,  and  soaring  upwards,  sing- 
ing as  he  rises,  and  hopes  to  get  to  heaven, 
and  climb  above  the  clouds ;  but  the  poor 
bird  was  beaten  back  by  the  loud  sigliings 
of  an  eastern  wind,  and  his  motion  made 
irregular  and  inconstant,  descending  more 
at  every  breath  of  the  tempest  than  it  could 
recover  by  the  libration  and  frequent  weigh- 
ing of  his  wings,  till  the  little  creature  was 
forced  to  sit  down  and  pant,  and  stay  till 
the  storm  was  over ;  and  then  it  made  a 
prosperous  flight,  and  did  rise  and  sing,  as 
if  it  had  learned  music  and  motion  fp^i 


SERENITY  OF  PRAYER.  76 

an  angel,  as  he  passed  sometime  through 
the  air,  about  his  ministries  here  below. 

'  So  is  the  prayer  of  a  good  man.  When 
his  affairs  have  required  business,  *  * 
his   duty  met  with  infirmities  of  a  man, 

*  *  and  the  instrument  became  stronger 
than  the  prime  agent,  and  raised  a  tem- 
pest, and  overruled  the  man  ;  and  then  his 
prayer  was  broken,  and  his  thoughts  were 
troubled,  and  his  words  went  up  towards  a 
cloud,  and  his  thoughts  pulled  them  back 
again,  and  made  them  without  intention ; 
and  the  good  man  sighs  for  his  infirmity, 
but  must  be  content  to  lose  his  prayer ; 
and  he  mu&t  recover  it  when  *  *  his 
spirit  is  becalmed,  made  even  as  the  brow 
of  Jesus,  and  smooth  like  the  heart  of  God : 
and  then  it  ascends  to  heaven  upon  the 
wings  of  a  holy  dove,  and  dwells  with  God, 
till  it  returns,  like  the  useful  bee,  loaden 
with  a  blessing  and  the  dew  of  heaven.* 


IX. 


YE  HAVE  BROUGHT  THAT  WHICH  WAS  TORN,  AND 
THE  LAME,  AND  THE  SICK.  SHOULD  I  ACCEPT  THIS 
OF  YOUR  HAND  ?  —  Mal.  1 :  13. 


Our  mental  indolence  may  poison  the 
very  fountain  of  prayer.  Are  we  not  often 
reminded  of  our  need  of  an  effort  of  intel- 
lect, to  enable  us  to  realize  to  ourselves  the 
personality  of  God,  and  to  address  to  Him 
the  language  of  supplication,  as  if  to  a 
friend  who  is  invisibly  with  us  ?  What  is 
left  of  prayer,  if  these  two  things  are 
abstracted  from  it  —  a  sense  of  the  personal 
presence  and  of  the  personal  friendship  of 
God  ?  He  that  cometh  unto  God,  must  ^ 
lieve  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is  a  rewardef 


IDOLATRY   IN   PRAYER.  77 

Subtract  these  from  our  ideal  in  prayer, 
and  all  that  remains  the  Polish  peasant 
possessed,  when  he  strung  his  prayers  upon 
a  windmill,  and  counted  so  many  to  the 
credit  side  of  his  conscience,  with  every 
turn  of  the  wheel. 

A  plain  man  once  said  :  '  Before  my  con- 
version, when  I  prayed  in  the  presence  of 
others,  I  prayed  to  them;  when  I  prayed 
in  secret,  I  prayed  to  mi/self;  but  now  I 
pray  to  God.^  But  your  experience  has 
doubtless  taught  you,  long  before  this  time, 
that  one  of  the  most  difficult  things  in- 
volved in  an  act  of  devotion,  is  to  secure  to 
it  this  reality  of  intercourse  between  the 
soul  and  a  present  friend. 

Does  it  cost  us  no  effort  to  feel,  in  the 
silence  and  solitude  of  the  closet,  the  truth- 
fulness of  language  like  this  ?  — perhaps  we 
are  sometimes  assisted  by  uttering  it  audi- 
bly, — '  God  is  here,  within  these  walls ; 
before  me,  behind  me,  on  my  right  hand, 


78  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

on  my  left  hand.  He  who  fills  immensity 
has  come  down  to  me  here.  I  am  now 
about  to  bow  at  His  feet,  and  speak  to  Him. 
He  will  hear  the  very  words  I  utter.  I 
may  pour  forth  my  desires  before  Him,  and 
not  one  syllable  from  my  lips  shall  escape 
His  ear.  I  may  speak  to  Him  as  I  would 
to  the  dearest  friend  I  have  on  earth, 
whose  hand  I  should  grasp,  and  whose  eye 
I  should  watch,  and  in  the  changes  of 
whose  speaking  countenance  I  should  read 
the  interest  which  he  felt  in  my  story. 
Yes ;  I  am  about  to  speak  to  God,  though 
I  do  not  see  Him ;  no  image  of  Him  aids 
my  vision  or  my  faith :  though  I  do  not 
hear  His  footfall  around  me;  He  is  not 
in  the  wind,  nor  in  the  earthquake,  nor 
in  the  fire.  Yet  He  is  here  as  truly  as  if 
clothed  in  a  refulgent  body,  and  these  eyes 
could  look  upon  Him,  and  these  ears  could 
hear  the  sound  of  His  tread/  ^  y 


DIFFICULTY   OF  PRAYER.  79 

*  Jesus,  these  eyes  have  never  seen 

That  radiant  form  of  thine! 
The  veil  of  sense  hangs  dark  between 
Thy  blessed  face  and  mine! 

*  I  see  Thee  not,  I  hear  Thee  not, 

Yet  art  Thou  oft  with  me ; 
And  earth  hath  ne'er  so  dear  a  spot 
As  where  I  meet  with  Thee/ 

In  this  manner,  to  feel  the  reality  of 
God's  spiritual  presence,  and  then  to  speak 
the  language  of  adoration,  confession,  peti- 
tion, thanksgiving,  with  a  eontiniious  sense 
of  its  being,  as  Chalmers  longed  to  feel  it, 
an  actual  interchange  between  ourselves 
and  God,  a  real  conference  of  friends, — 
this,  surely,  is  not  at  all  times,  in  all  states 
of  the  body,  in  all  moods  of  sensibility, 
under  all  varieties  of  circumstance,  natural 
to  fallen  minds  like  ours.  It  is  not  a  state 
of  mind  to  which,  without  culture,  without 
discipline  in  Christian  life,  we  spring  spon- 
taneously, involuntarily,  as  we   spring   to 


80  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

conscious  thinking  when  we  wake  from 
sleep.  A  process  of  intellect  is  involved  in 
it  which  demands  exertion. 

The  difficulty  is  that  which  idolatry  was 
invented  to  meet,  by  furnishing  an  image 
of  God  to  aid  the  mind ;  that  is,  by  giving 
it  an  object  of  sense,  to  relieve  it  from  the 
labor  of  forming  the  conception  of  a  spirit- 
ual Deity. 

Is  it  not  evident,  then,  what  effect  must 
be  produced  upon  our  devotional  hours,  if 
we  squander  them,  through  a  habit  of  in- 
tellectual indolence  ?  It  has  been  said  that 
we  are  all  born  idolaters.  We  truly  are 
Very  like  idolaters  in  indolent  prayer.  Pur- 
sue this  thought,  for  a  moment,  into  the 
details  of  individual  experience,  and  let  us 
have  courage  to  look  the  evil  in  the  face, 
and  call  it  by  its  right  name  ;  for  this  is 
a  matter  which,  to  be  felt  as  it  deserves, 
needs  to  be  permitted  to  pierce  to  the  most 
secret  habits  of  the  closet. 


INDOLENCE  IN  PRAYER.  81 

Imagine,  then,  that  you  go  to  your  place 
of  retirement  reluctantly,  listlessly.  Your 
mind,  perhaps,  is  in  a  state  of  reaction  from 
the  excitements  of  the  day.  You  are  in- 
disposed to  thought  of  any  kind.  You  have 
no  eagerness  of  search  after  God  ;  it  is  not 
the  struggling  cry  of  your  heart,  '  Oh  that 
I  knew  where  I  might  find  Him ! '  From 
sheer  reluctance  to  endure  the  labor  of 
thinking,  you  neglect  preparatory  medita- 
tion. You  read  the  Scriptures  indolently; 
you  do  not  expect,  or  seek  for  a  spur  to 
your  own  conceptions,  in  the  words  of  in- 
spired thinkers.  Your  indolent  mind  in- 
fects the  body  with  its  infirmity;  you 
instinctively  choose  that  posture  in  your 
devotions,  which  is  most  tempting  to  physi- 
cal repose. 

Imagine  that,  in  the  act  of  prayer,  your 
mind  dreams  its  way  through  a  dialect  of 
dead  words ;  it  floats  on  the  current  of  a 
stereotyped  phraseology,  which  once  leaped 


82  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

with  life  from  the  lips  of  holy  men  who  oi^ 
igiiiated  it ;  but  some  of  which,  your  mem- 
ory obliges  you  to  confess,  never  had  any 
vitality  in  your  own  thoughts.  It  was 
never  original  with  you  ;  you  have  never 
worked  it  out  in  your  own  experience ; 
you  have  never  lived  it ;  it  has  never 
forced  itself  into  expression,  as  the  fruit 
of  self-knowledge  or  of  self-conflict. 

Or,  imagine  that  you  invariably,  or  even 
habitually,  pray  inaudibly,  because  the  lux- 
uriousness  of  silent  thought  is  more  facile 
to  an  indolent  spirit,  than  the  labor  of  ex- 
pressing thought  with  the  living  voice. 
You  cannot  often  say,  with  David,  '  I  cried 
unto  the  Lord  with  my  voice;  with  my 
voice  unto  the  Lord  did  I  make  my  suppli- 
cation.' You  do  not  pause,  and  struggle 
with  yourself,  and  gird  up  your  loins  like 
a  man,  and  ejaculate  a  cry  for  Divine  aid, 
in  the  mastery  of  thoughts  which  wancje? 
like  the  fool's  eyes.     And  you  close  your 


A   SECRET   FAULT.  83 

prayer,  with  a  formula  which  touches  the 
very  soul  of  faith,  and  hope,  and  love,  and 
all  that  is  grand  and  mysterious  and  eter- 
nal in  redemption,  —  a  formula  hallowed 
by  centuries  of  prayer ;  yet,  in  uttering  it, 
when  you  say :  *  For  Christ's  sake.  Amen,' 
your  mind  is  not  conscious  of  a  single  defi- 
nite, affecting  thought,  of  either  the  history 
or  the  meaning  of  that  language. 

Imagine  this  as  a  scene  of  real  life  in 
the  closet.  Is  this  a  caricature  of  some 
possible  modes  of  secret  devotion  ?  And 
if  it  is  not,  is  it  marvellous  that  such  devo- 
tion should  be  afflicted,  with  a  want  of  en- 
joyment of  the  Divine  presence  ?  *  Should 
I  accept  this  of  your  hand  ?  saith  the  Lord.* 

The  truth  is,  that  an  indulgence  of  slug- 
gishness of  mind  is  sometimes  the  secret 
sin  of  good  men.  It  is  the  iniquity  which 
they  regard  in  their  hearts,  and  because  of 
which  God  will  not  hear  them.  Mental 
ease  is  a  refined  and  seductive  idol,  which 


84  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

often  beguiles  men  who  have  too  much 
Christian  principle,  or  too  much  delicacy 
of  nature,  or  too  much  prudence  of  self- 
control,  or  it  may  be  too  much  pride  of 
character,  to  fall  into  a  physical  vice. 

When  good  men  are  ensnared  in  this 
sleek  idolatry,  before  the  decline  of  old 
age.  or  the  infirmities  of  disease  render 
rest  a  necessity,  God  often  breaks  in  upon 
it  "s^-ith  the  blows  of  His  hard  hand.  He 
fights  against  it  '  with  battles  of  shaking  ' ; 
and  in  part  with  the  design  of  recalling 
His  mistaken  friends,  into  closer  com- 
munion with  Himself.  He  thwarts  their 
plans  of  life.  He  sends  troubles  to  plague 
them.  He  knocks  out  from  under  them, 
the  props  of  their  comfort.  He  does  this,  in 
part,  for  the  sake  of  startling  their  torpid 
minds,  and  thus  reaching  their  stagnant 
hearts,  by  giving  them  something  to  think 
of,  which  they  feel  they  must  make  the  suhr 
ject  of  living,  agonizing  prayer. 


THE   STILL   HOUR.  85 

Oh  !  God's  thoughts  are  not  as  our 
thoughts.  Dear  as  our  happiness  is  to 
Him,  there  is  another  thing  within  us, 
which  is  more  precious  in  His  sight.  It 
is  of  far  less  consequence,  in  any  Divine 
estimate  of  things,  how  much  a  man  suf- 
fers, than  —  what  the  man  is. 


X. 


COULD  YE  NOT  WATCH  WITH  ME  ONE  HOUR  ? 

Matt.  26 :  40. 

We  are  often  in  a  religious  hurry  in  our 
devotions.  How  much  time  do  we  spend 
in  them  daily  ?  Can  it  not  be  easily  reck- 
oned in  minutes  ? 

Probably,  many  of  us  would  be  discom- 
posed by  an  arithmetical  estimate  of  our 
communion  with  God.  It  might  reveal  to 
us  the  secret  of  much  of  our  apathy  in 
prayer,  because  it  might  disclose  how  little 
we  desire  to  be  alone  with  God.  We  might 
learn  from  such  a  computation,  that  Augus^ 
tine's  idea  of  prayer,  as  '  the  measure  of 
love,'  is  not  very  flattering  to  us.  We  do 
not  grudge  time  given  to  a  privilege  which 
we  love. 


HASTE   IN   PRAYER.  87 

Why  should  we  expect  to  enjoy  a  duty 
which  we  have  no  time  to  enjoy  ?  Bo  we 
enjoy  anything  which  we  do  in  a  hurry  ? 
Enjoyment  presupposes  something  of  men- 
tal leisure.  How  often  do  we  say  of  a 
pleasure,  '  I  wanted  more  time  to  enjoy  it 
to  my  heart's  content.'  But  of  all  employ- 
ments, none  can  be  more  dependent  on 
*  time  for  it,'  than  stated  prayer. 

Fugitive  acts  of  devotion,  to  be  of  high 
value,  must  be  sustained  by  other  ap- 
proaches to  God,  deliberate,  premeditated, 
regular,  which  shall  be  to  those  acts  like 
the  abutments  of  a  suspension-bridge  to  the 
arch  that  spans  the  stream.  It  will  never 
do,  to  be  in  desperate  haste  in  laying  such 
foundations.  This  thoughtful  duty,  this 
spiritual  privilege,  this  foretaste  of  incor- 
foreal  life,  this  communion  with  an  unseen 
Friend,  —  can  you  expect  to  enjoy  it  as 
you  would  a  repartee  or  a  dance  ? 

Li  the  royal  gallery  at  Dresden,  may  be 


88  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

often  seen  a  group  of  connoisseurs,  who 
sit  for  hours  before  a  single  painting. 
They  walk  around  those  halls  and  corri- 
dors, whose  walls  are  so  eloquent  with  the 
triumphs  of  Art,  and  they  come  back  and 
pause  again  before  that  one  masterpiece. 
They  go  away,  and  return  the  next  day, 
and  again  the  first  and  the  last  object  which 
charms  their  eye,  is  that  canvas  on  which 
Genius  has  pictured  more  of  beauty  than  on 
any  other  in  the  world.  Weeks  are  spent 
every  year,  in  the  study  of  that  one  work  of 
Raphael.  Lovers  of  Art  cannot  enjoy  it  to 
the  full,  till  they  have  made  it  their  own,  by 
prolonged  communion  with  its  matchless 
forms.  Says  one  of  its  admirers  :  '  I  could 
spend  an  hour  every  day,  for  years,  upon 
that  assemblage  of  human,  and  angelic,  and 
divine  ideals,  and  on  the  last  day  of  the  last 
year  discover  some  new  beauty,  and  a  new 
ioy.' 

I  have  seen  men  standing  in  the  street, 


PRAYER   A    COMMUNION.  89 

before  an  engraving  of  that  gem  of  the 
Dresden  Gallery,  a  longer  time  than  a  good 
man  will  sometimes  devote  to  his  evening 
prayer.  Yet,  what  thoughts,  what  ideals 
of  grace,  can  Genius  express  in  a  painting, 
demanding  time  for  their  appreciation  and 
enjoyment,  like  those  great  thoughts  of  God, 
of  Heaven,  of  Eternity,  which  the  soul  needs 
to  conceive  vividly^  in  order  to  know  the 
blessedness  of  prayer  ?  Wliat  conceptions 
tsan  Art  imagine  of  the  'Divine  Child,' 
which  can  equal  in  spirituality,  the  thoughts 
which  one  needs  to  entertain  of  Christ,  in 
the  'prayer  of  faith'?  We  cannot  hope, 
commonly,  to  spring  into  possession  of  such 
thoughts,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

Prayer,  as  we  have  observed,  is  an  act  of 
friendship  also.  It  is  intercourse  ;  an  act 
of  trust,  of  hope,  of  love,  all  prompting  to 
interchange  between  the  soul  and  an  Infi- 
nite, Spiritual,  Invisible  Friend.  We  all 
need  prayer,  if  for  no  other  purpose,  for 


90  THE   STILL  HOUB. 

this  which  we  so  aptly  call  communion  with 
God. 

Robert  Burns  lamented  that  he  could  not 
*pour  out  his  inmost  soul  without  reserve 
to  any  human  being,  without  danger  of  one 
day  repenting  his  confidence.'  He  com- 
menced a  journal  of  his  own  mental  history , 
*  as  a  substitute,'  he  said,  '  for  a  confidential 
friend.'  He  would  have  something  '  which 
he  could  record  himself  in,'  without  peril 
of  having  his  confidence  betrayed.  We  all 
need  prayer,  as  a  means  of  such  intercourse 
with  a  Friend  who  will  be  true  to  us. 

Zinzendorf,  when  a  boy,  used  to  write 
/ittle  notes  to  the  Saviour,  and  throw  them 
out  of  the  window,  hoping  that  He  would 
find  them.  Later  in  life,  so  strong  was  hie 
faith  in  the  friendship  of  Christ,  and  in  his 
own  need  of  that  friendship  as  a  daily  sol- 
ace, that  once,  when  travelling,  he  sent 
hack  his  companion,  that  he  might  conver^ 


STUDIOUS   PRAYER.  91 

more  freely  with  '  tlie  Lord,'  with  whom  ho 
spoke  audibly. 

So  do  we  all  need  friendly  converse  with 
Him  whom  our  souls  love.  '  He  alone  is  a 
thousand  companions  ;  he  alone  is  a  world 
of  friends.  That  man  never  knew  what  it 
was  to  be  familiar  with  God,  who  complains 
of  the  want  of  friends  while  God  is  with 
him.' 

But  who  can  originate  such  conceptions 
of  God,  as  are  necessary  to  the  enjoyment 
of  His  friendship  in  prayer,  without  time  for 
thought,  for  self-collection,  for  concentra- 
tion of  soul  ?  Momentary  devotion,  if  genu- 
ine, must  presuppose  the  habit  of  studious 
prayer. 

We  have  portraits  of  deceased  friends, 
before  which  we  love  to  sit  by  the  hour, 
striving  to  recall  the  living  features  which 
are  so  feebly  portrayed  there,  and  to  resus- 
citate the  history  of  expression  on  those 
countenances  in  life,  which  no  Art  could  fix 


92  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

on  canvas,  and  to  which  our  own  memory 
is  becoming  treacherous.  Have  we  never 
struggled  with  the  twilight,  to  make  those 
loved  but  flitting  expressions  live  again  ? 

Yet,  have  we  any  more  vivid  or  indelible 
conceptions  of  God,  'whom  no  man  hath 
seen  at  any  time '  ?  How  can  we  expect  to 
enjoy  a  sense  of  the  friendship  of  a  present 
Saviour,  if  we  never  linger  in  the  twilight, 
to  freshen  and  intensify  our  thoughts  of 
Him?  Does  He  never  speak  to  us  that 
plaintive  reproof, '  Could  ye  not  watch  with 
me  one  hour  ?  * 

A  very  busi/  Christian  says,  'This  is  a 
cloisteral  piety  which  demands  much  time 
for  secret  prayer.'  No,  not  that.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  is  not  a  piety  which,  in  its 
recoil  from  the  monastery,  is  heedless  of  the 
look  of  business  in  devotion,  which  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  words,  '  Enter  into  thy  closet 
and  shut  thy  door;^  and  of  the  scriptur^ 
stress  upon  perseverance  in  prayer ;  and  of 


CONTINUANCE   IN   PRAYER.  93 

the  inspired  idea  of  fasting  and  prayer  ;  and 
of  the  historic  argument  from  the  example 
of  eminent  saints,  both  of  Biblical,  and  of 
later  times. 

Who  ever  knew  an  eminently  holy  man, 
who  did  not  spend  much  of  his  time  in 
prayer  ?  Did  ever  a  man  exhibit  much  of 
the  spirit  of  prayer,  who  did  not  devote 
much  time  to  his  closet  ?  Whitefield  says, 
*  Whole  days  and  weeks  have  I  spent  pros- 
trate on  the  ground,  in  silent  or  vocal 
prayer.'  '  Fall  upon  your  knees,  and  grow 
there,'  is  the  language  of  another,  who  knew 
that  whereof  he  affirmed.  These,  in  spirit, 
are  but  specimens  of  a  feature  in  the  expe- 
rience of  eminent  piety,  which  is  absolutely 
uniform. 

It  has  been  said,  that  no  great  work  in 
literature  or  in  science  was  ever  wrought 
by  a  man  who  did  not  love  solitude.  We 
may  lay  it  down  as  an  elemental  principle 
of  religion,  that  no  large  growth  in  holiness 


94  THE  STILL  HOUR. 

was  ever  gained,  by  one  who  did  not  take 
time  to  be  often,  and  long,  alone  with  God. 
This  kind  goeth  not  out  but  by  prayer  and 
fasting.  No  otherwise  can  the  great  cen- 
tral idea  of  God  enter  into  a  man's  life,  and 
dwell  there  supreme. 

'Holiness,'  says  Dr.  Cudworth,  'is  some- 
thing of  God,  wherever  it  is.  It  is  an  efflux 
from  Him,  and  lives  in  Him  ;  as  the  sun- 
beams, although  they  gild  this  lower  world, 
and  spread  their  golden  wings  over  us,  yet 
they  are  not  so  much  here  where  they  shine, 
as  in  the  sun  from  whence  they  flow.'  Such 
a  possession  of  the  idea  of  God,  we  never 
gain  but  from  still  hours.  For  such  holy 
joy  in  God,  we  must  have  much  of  the 
spirit  of  Him  who  rose  up  a  great  while 
before  day,  and  departed  into  a  solitary 
place  and  prayed,  and  who  continued  all 
night  in  prayer ;  '  the  mornijig  star  finding 
Him  where  the  evening  star  had  left  Him^ 


XI. 


A  DEVOUT  MAN,   ONE  THAT  PRAYED  ALWAYS. 

Acts  10 :  2. 


We  miss  very  much  devotional  joy,  by 
the  neglect  of  fragmentary  prayer.  In  the 
intervals  which  separate  periodical  seasons 
of  devotion,  we  need  a  habit  of  offering  up 
brief  ejaculatory  expressions  of  devout  feel- 
ing. The  morning  and  the  evening  sacrifice 
depend  very  much  upon  these  interspersed 
offerings,  as  these  in  return  are  dependent 
on  those.  Communion  with  God  in  both,  is 
assisted  by  linking  the  '  set  times '  together 
by  a  chain  of  heavenward  thoughts  and 
aspirations,  in  the  breaks  which  occur  in 
our  labors  and  amusements.  Sunrise  and 
Bunset    may    attract    our    attention    more 


96  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

strongly  than  the  succession  of  golden 
rays  between  them,  but  who  can  say  that 
they  are  more  cheering  ?  It  is  not  often 
that  a  day  wholly  clouded  lies  between  two 
clear  twilights. 

Prayer,  as  we  have  seen,  is^  in  the  high- 
est conception  of  it,  a  state  rather  than  an 
act.  A  full  fruition  of  its  benefits  depends 
on  a  continuity  of  its  influences.  Reduce 
it  to  two  isolated  experiments  daily,  and 
separate  these  by  long  blank  hours  in  which 
the  soul  has  no  glimpse  of  God  for  its  re- 
freshment, and  how  can  prayer  be  other 
than  a  toil,  and  often  a  drudgery  ? 

We  come  to  the  eventide  with  the  im- 
pression of  the  morning  watch  all  obliter- 
ated ;  probably  with  a  conscience  burdened 
by  accumulations  of  sin  upon  an  ungov- 
erned  spirit  through  the  day.  We  feel  that 
we  must  take  a  new  start  every  time  we 
seek  God's  presence.  Our  sense  of  spirit^ 
ual  progress  is  lost.     Sinning  and  repenting 


FRAGMENTARY   PRAYER.  97 

is  all  our  life  ;  we  do  not  have  holy  force 
enough  to  get  beyond  repentance  in  our 
devotion.  Our  prayers,  instead  of  being, 
as  they  should  be,  advancing  steps,  are  like 
the  steps  of  a  tread-mill.  Humane  law  has 
abandoned  this,  even  as  a  punishment  for 
felons  ;  why  should  one  whom  Christ  has 
made  free  inflict  it  upon  himself  ? 

We  need,  then,  something  that  shall  make 
our  prayerful  hours  support  each  other  — 
the  morning  tributary  to  the  evening,  and 
the  evening  to  the  morning.  Nothing  else 
can  do  this  so  naturally  as  the  habit  of  ejac- 
ulatory  prayer.  The  spirit  of  prayer  may 
run  along  the  line  of  such  a  habit  through 
a  lifetime.  So,  one  may  live  in  a  state  of 
prayer,  '  a  devout  man  that  prays  always.' 

Not  only  does  this  habit  of  fragmentary 
prayer  contribute  to  a  lofty,  devotional  spirit, 
but  such  a  spirit  demands  it  for  its  own 
indulgence. 

It  is  characteristic  of  minds  which  are  as- 


98  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

piling  in  their  piety,  and  which  have  begun 
to  reap  the  reward  of  arduous  devotional 
culture,  to  be  habitually  conversant  with 
God.  Such  minds  are  constantly  looking 
up.  In  the  very  midst  of  earthly  toils,  they 
seize  moments  of  relief,  to  spring  up  to  the 
eminences  of  meditation,  where  they  love  to 
dwell.  In  the  discharge  of  duties  most  un- 
friendly to  holy  joy,  they  are  apt  to  expe- 
rience a  buoyancy  of  impulse  towards  a 
heavenly  plane  of  thought,  which  it  may 
even  require  a  power  of  self-denial  to  keep 
down. 

Critics  have  observed,  that  in  the  apos- 
tolic epistles,  doxologies  are  sometimes  em- 
bedded in  passages  of  remonstrance  and  of 
warning.  It  should  seem,  that  the  apostolic 
mind  came  down  unwillingly,  or  from  a 
sense  of  duty  only,  to  deal  with  the  sins  and 
weaknesses  of  earth  ;  and  was  on  the  watch 
for  chances  to  rise,  like  a  bird  let  loosed 


PROVIDENCE   AND   PRAYER.  99 

though  but  for  a  moment,  into  the  upper 
air. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  holiness.  Being 
from  God,  it  is  ever  seeking  to  revert  to  its 
source.  The  heavier  the  pressure  of  a  mun- 
dane life  upon  it,  the  stronger  is  the  force 
of  its  compressed  aspirations.  Such  pres- 
sure is  like  that  of  the  atmosphere  on 
water,  which  seeks,  through  crevices  in  its 
enclosure,  the  level  of  its  fountain.  A  spirit 
like  this,  I  repeat,  will  demand  the  habit  of 
fragmentary  prayer  for  its  own  holy  indul- 
gence ;  and  will  demand  it  with  an  impor- 
tunity proportioned  to  the  superincumbent 
weight  of  earthly  cares. 

The  providence  of  God,  also,  contem- 
plates these  impulses  as  a  counterpart  to 
certain  of  its  own  procedures. 

Under  the  laws  of  Providence,  life  is  a  pro- 
bation ;  probation  is  a  succession  of  tempta- 
tions ;  temptations  are  emergencies ;  and 
for  emergencies  we  need  the   preparation 


100  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

and  the  safeguard  of  prayer.  "We  have  du* 
ties  which  are  perilous.  We  meet  surprises 
of  evil.  We  struggle  with  a  wily  adversary. 
We  feel  perplexities  of  conscience,  in  which 
holy  decision  depends  on  the  mind  we  bring 
to  them.  We  encounter  disappointments 
which  throw  us  back  from  our  hopes  rudely. 
We  have  difficult  labors,  in  which  we  some- 
times come  to  a '  dead-lock ; '  we  do  not  know 
what  to  do.  We  have  an  unknown  experi- 
ence opening  upon  us  every  hour.  We  are 
like  travellers  in  a  fog,  who  cannot  see  an 
arm's-length  before  them.  Providence  is 
thus  continually  calling  for  the  aids  of 
prayer ;  and  in  a  soul  which  is  keen  in  its 
vigilance,  prayer  will  be  continually  respon- 
sive to  providences,  often  anticipative  of 
them. 

The  methods  of  the  Holy  Spirit  also,  pre- 
suppose the  value  of  these  fragmentary  de- 
votions. God  often  secretly  inclines  a  Chris^ 
tian's  heart  to  engage  in  them. 


SECRET  PROMPTINGS.  101 

Are  there  not,  in  the  lives  of  us  all,  mo 
ments  when,  without  the  formality  of  retire- 
ment to  the  closet,  we  feel  disposed  to  pray  ? 
We  are  conscious  of  special  attraction  to- 
wards God.  Perhaps  with  no  obvious  rea- 
son  for  ^  looking  up '  now  rather  than  an 
hour  ago,  we  do  look  up.  *  We  feel  just  like 
•praying. '  It  is  as  if  we  heard  heavenly 
voices  saying,  '  Come  up  hither. ' 

There  is  often  a  beautiful  alliance  be- 
tween Providence  and  Grace,  in  these  expe- 
riences. A  Christian  who  will  be  studious 
of  his  own  history,  will  probably  discover, 
that  often  the  occasions  for  such  fragmentary 
communings  with  God  follow  hard  upon 
these  secret  incitements  to  them.  Emergen- 
cies come  soon  for  which  they  are  needed. 
The  Holy  Spirit  has  anticipated  them,  and 
sought  to  forearm  us.  Providence  and 
Grace  thus  hover  over  us,  not  far  asunder. 

In  this  view,  those  Biblical  exhortations 
to    prayer,    which    men    have    sometimes 


102  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

deemed  extravagant,  are  transparently  ra- 
tional :  *  Continue  in  prayer  ; '  *  Continue 
instant  in  prayer ; '  *  Pray  without  ceasing;^ 
*  Men  ought  always  to  pray  ; '  *  Rejoice  in 
the  Lord  always  !  '  Such  exhortations  con- 
template a  state,  not  insulated  acts,  of 
prayer.  They  fit  in  well,  to  the  system 
of  things  in  which  we  are  living  ;  for,  that 
system  seems,  on  all  sides  of  it,  to  pre- 
suppose just  this  continuity  of  unpremedi- 
tated ejaculations,  joining  together  our  star 
ted  seasons  of  devotion. 

No  Christian,  then,  can  afford  to  be  fru- 
gal of  prayer,  in  the  intervals  of  daily  busi- 
ness and  amusement.  Enjoyment  of  all 
communion  with  God  must  be  impaired,  by 
the  loss  of  these  little  tributaries.  A  Chris- 
tian's life,  so  conducted,  must  languish  as  a 
tree  does,  whose  fibrous  roots  are  stripped 
off,  leaving  only  its  truncal  roots,  possibly 
only  a  tap-root,  for  its  nourishment.  Tha^ 
Christian  is  hoping  against  impossibilities, 


CONTENDING    WITH    GOD.  103 

who  thinks  to  enjoy  a  life  of  intercourse 
with  God,  in  any  such  way. 

We  are  opposing  God's  method  of  work- 
ing, if  our  life  has  a  tendency  to  incapaci- 
tate us  for  the  enjoyment  of  prayer  at  all 
times.  If  by  needless  excess  of  worldly 
cares  ;  if  by  inordinate  desires,  which  ren- 
der it  impossible  for  us  to  accomplish  our 
objects  in  life  without  such  excess  of  care ; 
if  by  frivolous  habits  ;  if  by  the  reading  of 
infidel  or  effeminate  literature;  if  by  an 
indolent  life ;  if  by  any  self-indulgence  in 
physical  regimen  —  we  render  the  habit  of 
fragmentary  prayer  impracticable  or  unnat- 
ural to  us,  we  are  crossing  the  methods  of 
Grod's  working.  Something  has  gone  wrong, 
is  going  wrong,  in  the  life  of  that  Chris- 
tian who  finds  himself  thus  estranged  from 
filial  freedom  with  God. 

Such  a  Christian  must,  sooner  or  later,  be 
brought  back  to  Christ,  and  must  begin  life 
anew.     He  will  come  back  heavy  laden  and 


104  THE    STILL   HOUR 

in  tears.  No  words  express  more  becom* 
ingly  the  wail  of  his  spirit,  whenever  he 
comes  to  his  right  mind,  than  the  plaint  of 
Cowper  — 

*  Oh  for  a  doser  uxUk  witli  God!  * 

In  the  vestibule  of  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  is 
a  doorway,  which  is  walled  up  and  marked 
with  a  cross.  It  is  opened  but  four  times 
in  a  century.  On  Christmas  Eve,  once  in 
twenty-five  years,  the  Pope  approaches  it  in 
princely  state,  with  the  retinue  of  cardinals 
in  attendance,  and  begins  the  demolition  of 
the  door,  by  striking  it  three  times  with 
a  silver  hammer.  When  the  passage  is 
opened,  the  multitude  pass  into  the  nave 
of  the  cathedral,  and  up  to  the  altar,  by  an 
avenue  which  the  majority  of  them  never 
entered  thus  before,  and  never  will  enter 
thus  again. 

Imagine  that  the  way  to  the  Throne  of/ 
Grace  were  like  the  Porta  Santa^  inaccessi- 


THE  PORTA   SANTA.  105 

ble,  save  once  in  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
on  the  twenty-fifth  of  December,  and  then 
Dnly  with  august  solemnities,  conducted  by 
great  dignitaries  in  a  holy  city.  Conceive 
that  it  were  now  ten  years  since  you,  or  I, 
or  any  other  sinner,  had  been  permitted  to 
pray ;  and  that  fifteen  long  years  must 
drag  themselves  away,  before  we  could  ven- 
ture again  to  approach  God ;  and  that,  at 
the  most,  we  could  not  hope  to  pray  more 
than  two  or  three  times  in  a  lifetime !  With 
what  solicitude  we  should  wait  for  the  com- 
ing of  that  Holy  Day  !  We  should  lay  our 
plans  of  life,  select  our  homes,  build  our 
houses,  choose  our  professions,  form  our 
friendships,  with  reference  to  a  pilgrimage 
in  that  twenty-fifth  year.  We  should  reck- 
on time  by  the  openings  of  that  Sacred  Door, 
as  epochs.  No  other  one  thought  would  en- 
gross so  much  of  our  lives,  or  kindle  our 
sensibilities  so  intensely,  as  the  thought  of 
Prayer.    It  would  be  of  more  significance 


106  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

to  US  than  the  thought  of  Death  is  now. 
It  would  multiply  our  trepidations  at  the 
thought  of  dying.  Fear  would  grow  to 
horror,  at  the  idea  of  dying  before  that 
year  of  Jubilee.  No  other  question  would 
give  us  such  tremors  of  anxiety  as  these 
would  excite  :  '  How  many  years  now  to 
the  time  of  Prayer  ?  How  many  months  ? 
How  many  weeks  ?  How  many  days  ? 
Shall  we  live  to  see  it  ?  Who  can  tell  ? ' 
Yet,  on  that  great  Day,  amidst  an  in- 
numerable throng,  in  a  courtly  presence, 
within  sight  and  hearing  of  stately  rites, 
what  would  prayer  he  worth  to  us  ?  Who 
would  value  it  in  the  comparison  with  those 
still  moments,  that  — 

*  secret  silence  of  the  mind/ 

in  which  we  now  can  '  find  God,'  every  day 
and  every  where  ?  That  Day  would  be  more 
like  the  Day  of  Judgment  to  us,  than  like 
the  sweet  minutes  of  converse  with  '  Our 


ALWAYS   WITH   GOD.  107 

Father/  which  we  may  now  have,  every 
hour.  We  should  appreciate  this  privilege 
of  hourly  prayer,  if  it  were  once  taken  from 
us.     Should  we  not  ? 

*  StUl  with  Thee,  0  my  God, 

i  would  desire  to  be; 
By  day,  by  night,  at  home,  abroad, 

I  would  be  still  with  Thee  I 

With  Thee  amid  the  crowd 
That  throngs  the  busy  mart  — 

To  hear  Thy  voice,  'mid  clamcMT  loocu 
Speak  softly  to  my  heart  t  * 


XII. 


THE  SPIRIT   ALSO   HELPETH   OUR   INFIRMITIES. 

Rom.  8 :  26. 


Languor  may  be  the  penalty  of  egotism  in 
prayer.  No  other  infirmity  is  so  subtle,  or 
so  corrosive  to  devotion,  as  that  of  an  over- 
weening consciousness  of  self.  It  is  pos- 
sible, that  an  intense  self-conceit  should 
flaunt  itself  in  the  forms  of  devoutness. 

To  a  right-minded  man,  some  of  the  most 
astonishing  passages  in  the  Bible,  are  the 
mysterious  declarations  and  hints  of  the 
residence  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  a  human 
soul.  We  must  stand  in  awe,  before  any 
just  conception  of  the  meaning  of  such 
voices  as  these  :  *  The  Spirit  of  God  dwell- 
eth  in  you';  'God  dwelleth  in  us';  *  Ye 


INDWELLING   OF  GOD.  109 

are  the  temple  of  God  ' ;  '  Your  body  is  the 
temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost';  <Full  of  the 
Holy  Ghost ' ;  '  Filled  with  all  the  fulness 
of  God';  'Praying  in  the  Holy  Ghost'; 
'With  all  prayer  in  the  Spirit';  'The 
Spirit  itself  maketh  intercession  for  us.' 

But  the  mysteriousness  of  such  language 
should  not  surprise  us.  Its  mystery  is  only 
the  measure  of  its  depth.  It  is  the  reality 
which  it  expresses  that  is  amazing.  Let  us 
not  fritter  it  away  by  shallow  interpreta- 
tions. While,  on  the  one  hand,  we  are 
under  no  necessity  of  blinking  the  truth 
of  the  intense  activity  of  the  soul  in  any 
holy  experience  ;  on  the  other  hand,  we 
must  discern  in  such  phraseology,  the  greater 
intensity  of  the  Holy  Spirit's  action  in  a 
holy  mind.  The  existence  of  the  mind  is 
no  more  a  reality,  than  this  indwelling  of 
God. 

What  then  is  prayer,  as  seen  in.  perspective 
with  this  doctrine  of  '  the  Spirit '  ?     Is  it 


110  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

merely  the  dialect  of  helplessness  ?  Is  li 
only,  as  Paley  defines  it,  the  expression  of 
want?  Is  it  nothing  but  the  lament  of 
poverty,  or  the  moan  of  suffering,  or  the 
cry  of  fear  ?  Is  it  simply  the  trust  of  weak- 
ness in  strength,  the  leaning  of  ignorance 
upon  wisdom,  the  dependence  of  guilt 
upon  mercy  ?  It  is  all  these,  but  more. 
A  holy  prayer  is  the  Spirit  of  God  speaking 
through  the  infirmities  of  a  human  soul; 

*  God's  breath  in  man,  returning  to  his  birth.' 

We  scarcely  utter  hyperbole  in  saying,  that 
prayer  is  the  Divine  Mind  communing 
with  itself,  through  finite  wants,  through 
the  woes  of  helplessness,  through  the  cling- 
ing  instincts  of  weakness.  On  this  side  of 
the  Judgment,  no  other  conception  of  the 
Presence  of  God  is  so  profound,  as  that 
which  is  realized  in  our  souls  every  time 
we  offer  a  genuine  prayer.  God  is  theu 
not  only  with  us,  but  within  us. 


DISHONORING  THE   SPIRIT.  Ill 

That  was  human  nature  in  honest  dismay 
at  its  own  guilt,  in  which  the  children  of  Is- 
rael said  to  Moses,  '  Speak  thou  with  us  and 
we  will  hear ;  let  not  God  speak  with  us,  lest 
we  die.'  That  was  an  adventurous  trust- 
fulness, which  could  enable  the  Monk  of 
Mount  St.  Agnes  to  say  of  this  language, 
*I  pray  not  in  this  manner;  no,  Lord,  ] 
pray  not  so ;  but  with  Samuel  I  entreat, 
"Speak  Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth." 
Do  Thou,  therefore,  0  Lord  my  God !  speak 
to  my  soul,  lest  I  die.'  But  what  is  the 
sacredness  of  God's  speaking  to  us,  in  com- 
parison with  the  more  awful  thought  of  His 
speaking  within  us !  Yet  this  is  prayer. 
Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  Temple  of 
God? 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  the  loss  of  much 
joy  in  prayer  may  be  attributed  to  some 
form  of  dishonor  done  to  the  Holy  Spirit, 
in  either  the  intent  or  the  manner  of  our 
devotions.      Tlie  Spirit  sternly  refuses  to 


112  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

become  a  participant  in  any  act  which  dis- 
parages Him,  and  exalts  in  the  heart  of  the 
worshipper  the  idea  of  Self.  A  profound 
Christian  truth  may  be  clothed  in  the  lan- 
guage of  a  heathen  proverb :  '  A  Divine 
Spirit  is  within  us,  who  treats  us  as  He  is 
treated  by  us.' 

We  may  offer  our  supplications,  with  no 
penetrating  sense  of  the  necessity  of  super- 
natural aid.  There  may  be  no  childlike 
consciousness  of  infirmity  which  should 
lead  us  to  cry  out  for  help.  The  inspired 
words,  often  on  our  lips,  may  seldom  come 
from  the  depth  of  our  hearts :  '  We  know 
not  what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought.' 
We  make  prayer  itself  one  of  the  standard 
subjects  of  prayer ;  yet,  on  what  theme  do 
our  devotions  more  frequently  degenerate 
into  routine  than  on  this  ?  Have  we  a 
sense  of  indigence  when  we  ask  for  the 
indwelling  of  God  in  our  souls  ?  Have  wo 
such  a  sense  of  need  of  it,  as  we  have  of  the 


IRREVERENT   PRAYER.  113 

need  of  air  when  we  are  gasping  with  faint* 
ness  ?  It  is  the  law  of  Divine  blessing,  thai 
want  comes  before  wealth,  hunger  before  a 
feast.  We  must  experience  the  necessity,  in 
order  to  appreciate  the  reality. 

Have  we  desires  in  prayer  which  we  feel 
unable  to  utter  without  the  aid  of  God? 
Dr.  Pay  son  said,  that  he  pitied  the  Christian 
who  had  no  longings  at  the  throne  of  Grace 
which  he  could  not  clothe  in  language. 
There  may  be  a  silent  disavowal  of  our 
need  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  very  act  in 
which  we  seek  His  energy.  The  lips  may 
honor  Him,  but  the  heart  may  say :  '  What 
have  I  to  do  with  Thee  ? ' 

We  may  dishonor  the  Holy  Spirit  by 
irreverent  speech  in  prayer.  The  Spirit 
can  indite  no  other  than  reverent  words. 
Where  do  we  find,  in  the  Scriptures,  an 
unhallowed  familiarity  of  communion  with 
God  ?  Only  at  that  gathering  of  the  sons 
of  God,  at  which  '  Satan  came  also  among 


114  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

them.'    It  required  the  effrontery  of  an  evil 
spirit,  to  talk  to  God  as  to  an  equal. 

The  consciousness  of  Divine  friendship 
in  devotion,  so  far  from  being  impaired,  is 
deepened  by  holy  veneration.  The  purest 
and  most  lasting  human  friendships  are 
permeated  with  an  element  of  reverence ; 
much  more  this  friendship  of  a  man  with 
God.  Moses,  with  whom  God  spoke  '  as  a 
man  with  his  friend,'  was  the  man  who 
said,  *  I  exceedingly  fear  and  quake.'  Abra- 
ham was  called  the  '  friend  of  God  ; '  yet, 
his  favorite  posture  in  prayer  was  prostra- 
tion. He  '  fell  on  his  face,  and  God  talked 
with  him.'  Do  not  seraphs  cover  their  faces, 
in  any  service  which  approximates  to  thd 
nature  of  prayer  ? 

*  Lowly  reverent 
Towards  either  throne  they  how,  and  to  the  ground, 
"With  solemn  adoration,  down  they  cast 
Their  crowns  inwove  with  amarant  and  gold.* 

Even  He  who  could  say  to  His  Father, '  ] 


IMPATIENT   PRAYER.  115 

know  that  Thou  always  hear  est  me/  we 
are  told,  'was  heard  in  that  he  feared.^ 

What,  other  than  solemn  mockery,  can 
that  devotion  be,  which  clothes  itself  in  pert 
speech  ?  The  heart  which  is  moved  in 
healthy  pulsations  of  sympathy  with  the 
promptings  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  indulges 
in  no  such  gasconade.  It  is  not  boisterous 
and  rude  of  tongue,  lifting  itself  up  to  '  talk 
saucily  to  God.'  It  is  emptied  of  self,  be- 
cause it  is  filled  with  the  fulness  of  God. 
Therefore  it  rejoices  with  joy  unspeakable. 

We  may  disparage  the  Holy  Spirit  by  a 
querulous  devotion.  Self-sufficiency  is  im- 
patient when  it  is  rebuffed ;  scarcely  less  so 
in  intercourse  with  God,  than  in  intercourse 
with  men.  Complaint  that  prayer  is  not 
answered  immediately,  or  in  the  specific 
thing  we  pray  for,  proves  that  the  Spirit 
has  not  '  helped  our  infirmities '  in  that 
prayer.  We  have  not  sought  His  aid,  nor 
desired  it.      He  prompts  only  submissive 


116  THE   STILL   HOUR, 

petitions,  patient  desires,  a  willingness  to 
wait  on  God  quietly,  and  self-forge tfully. 

A  Hottentot  beats  his  idol  when  he  fails 
in  his  supplications.  The  people  of  Naples 
are  frenzied  with  rage,  when  the  miracle 
of  the  '  Liquefaction '  does  not  appear  at 
the  festival  of  San  Gennaro.  How  far  is 
that  Christian  elevated  above  these,  in  pos- 
session of  the  'fruits  of  the  Spirit,'  whose 
heart  mutters  hard  thoughts  of  God,  at  the 
delay  or  the  refusal  of  an  answer  to  his 
prayers  ?  Such  devotion  is  intensely  self- 
ish, however  it  may  be  glossed  by  the  re- 
finements of  devout  speech. 

We  may  be  false  to  the  moving  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  by  a  diseased  inspection  of  our 
own  minds  in  the  act  of  communion  with 
God.  Self-examination  is  a  suitable  pre- 
liminary, or  after-thought,  to  prayer,  but 
is  no  part  of  it.  Devotion  is  most  thor- 
oughly objective,  in  respect  of  the  motives 
which  induce  its  presence.     It  is  won  into 


EGOTISM  IN   PRAYEK.  117 

exercise  by  attractions  from  without,  not 
forced  into  being  by  internal  commotions. 
It  is  an  outgoing,  not  a  seething  of  sensi- 
bility. The  suppliant  looks  upward  and 
around  beyond  himself;  and  devout  affec- 
tion grows  in  intensity  with  the  distance 
which  he  penetrates,  as  the  eye  grows  keen 
with  far  seeing.  The  Spirit  invites  to  no 
other  than  such  expansive  devotion.  We 
are  never  more  like  Christ,  than  in  prayers 
of  intercession.  In  the  most  lofty  devotion 
we  become  unconscious  of  self. 

Joy  too,  has,  from  its  very  nature,  the 
same  objective  origin.  It  springs  from 
fountains  out  of  ourselves.  It  comes  to  us ; 
we  do  not  originate  it,  we  do  not  gain  it  by 
searching.  We  are  never  jubilant  in  thinh 
ing  of  our  joy.  Our  happiness  is  an  ind- 
dent,  of  which,  as  an  object  of  thought,  we 
are  unconscious.  Divine  influence  is  ad- 
justed to  this  law  of  our  minds ;  it  seeks 


118  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

to  bless  US  by  leading  us  out  of  self  into 
great  thoughts  of  God. 

Hence,  one  of  the  most  delusive  methods 
of  crossing  the  will  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is 
that  habit  of  mental  introversion  in  prayer, 
which  corresponds  to  '  morbid  anatomy ' 
in  medical  science.  The  heart,  instead  of 
flowing  outward  and  upward  at  the  bidding 
of  the  Spirit,  turns  in  upon  itself,  and 
dissects  its  own  emotions,  and  studies  its 
own  symptoms  of  piety.  Any  kindlings  of 
joy  in  the  soul  are  quenched,  by  being  made 
the  subject  of  morbid  analysis. 

'  There  are  anatomists  of  piety,'  says 
Isaac  Taylor, '  who  destroy  all  the  freshness 
of  faith,  and  hope,  and  charity,  by  immur- 
ing themselves,  night  and  day,  in  the  in- 
fected atmosphere  of  their  own  bosoms.' 
Andrew  Fuller  has  recorded  of  himself, 
that  he  found  no  permanent  relief  from 
melancholy,  in  his  early  religious  life,  til^ 
his  heart  outgrew  the  pettiness  of  his  own 


GENEROUS   PRAYER.  119 

sorrows,  through  his  zeal  in  the  work  of 
Foreign  Missions.  We  may  often  be  sensi- 
ble, that  the  '  teachings  of  the  Spirit '  in 
our  hearts  are  of  just  this  character.  They 
prompt  away  from  ourselves.  '  Look  up, 
look  abroad,'  is  the  interpretation  of  them. 
'  Come  away  from  thyself ;  pray  for  some- 
thing out  of  thine  own  soul ;  be  generous 
in  thine  intercession ;  so  shall  thy  peace  be 
as  a  river.' 

Have  you  never  observed,  how  entirely 
devoid  is  the  Lord's  Prayer  of  any  material 
which  can  tempt  to  this  subtle  self-inspec- 
tion, in  the  act  of  devotion?  It  is  full  of 
an  outflowing  of  thought,  and  of  emotion, 
towards  great  objects  of  desire,  great  neces- 
sities, and  great  perils.  '  After  this  manner, 
therefore,  pray  ye/ 


XIIL 

WE  HAVE  AN  ADVOCATE    WITH   THE  FATHER. 

1  John  2 : 1« 

Christians  sometimes  offer  heathen  pray- 
ers. The  lifelessness  of  devotion  may  often 
be  attributable  to  the  want  of  a  cordial  recog- 
nition of  Christy  as  the  medium  of  access  to 
the  throne  of  Grace.  Prayer,  in  the  Divine 
plan  of  things,  has  but  one  avenue.  *No 
man  cometh  unto  the  Father  but  by  me.' 
Wlioever  slights  Christ  in  devotion, '  climb- 
eth  up  some  other  way.' 

The  central  idea  in  the  Christian  theory 
of  prayer,  is  that  oi privilege  gained  by  medi 
ation.  The  language  of  Christian  faith  is, '  1 
am  permitted  to  pray  because  of  the  merits 
of  another ;  I  do  not  deserve  to  pray,  I  can- 


TEACHINGS   OP   NATURE.  121 

not  claim  to  pray,  I  have  no  right  to  pray, 
but  by  Christ's  permission.'  The  doctrine 
of  prayer,  as  a  doctrine  of  Nature,  is  but 
a  fragmentary  truth.  In  its  fulness,  it  is 
a  Christian  peculiarity.  The  fact  of  an 
atonement  is  its  foundation.  The  person 
of  a  Redeemer  is  the  nucleus  of  its  history. 
One  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  neces- 
sity of  a  Revelation  rests,  is  that,  by  the 
teachings  of  Nature,  we  have  no  clear  right 
to  pray  —  no  right  which  satisfies  a  guilty 
conscience.  Philosophy  has  often  taught 
men  that  prayer  is  impiety.  To  an  awak- 
ened conscience,  Nature  seems  to  shut  man 
in  to  the  solitude  of  his  own  forebodings. 
In  its  dim  light,  prayer  and  sacrifice  grope 
hand  in  hand,  as  the  blind  leading  the  blind. 
The  right  of  either  to  existence  is  only  a 
presumed  right.  Faith  in  the  efiicacy  of 
either  staggers,  whenever  the  soul  is  shaken 
by  remorse,  or  philosophy  approaches  the 
Christian  conception  of  sin. 


122  THE   STILL  HOUR. 

Not  till  Christ  is  revealed,  does  prayer 
settle  itself  as  an  undoubted  fact ;  and  then 
it  is  as  a  privilege  only,  and  as  a  device 
of  mediatorial  government.  We  may  pray, 
'for  Chrisfs  sake.^  This  is  the  Christian 
theory  of  prayer,  and  this  is  the  whole  of  it. 

Now,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  one 
may  pray,  with  no  adequate  appreciation  of 
this  mediatorial  element  in  the  groundwork 
of  devotion.  A  man  may  habitually  pray, 
with  no  such  cordiality  of  soul  towards 
Christ,  as  is  becoming  to  a  suppliant  whose 
only  right  of  prayer  is  a  right  purchased  by 
atoning  blood. 

Is  it  unusual  for  a  Christian  mind  to  be 
thus  heedless  of  Christ  in  devotion  ?  Prac- 
tical heresy  of  this  kind  may  nestle  side  by 
side  with  irreproachable  orthodoxy.  A 
creed  and  a  faith,  even  upon  a  truth  so 
vital,  are,  by  no  means,  of  necessity  one. 
The  very  soundness  of  the  creed  may 
shelter  the  decay  of  the  faith.    We  may 


HEATHEN  PRATER.         123 

*  profess  and  call  ourselves  Christians,'  and 
yet  may  every  day  approach  God,  as  a  con- 
verted heathen  would,  who  had  never  heard 
of  Christ.  The  general  mercy  of  God  may 
be  the  foundation  of  all  the  hopefulness, 
all  the  trust,  all  the  fervor  we  really  feel 
in  prayer,  while  not  a  thought  occurs  to 
us  of  Christ  as  the  ground  of  that  mercy. 
"We  may  pray  then,  as,  perhaps,  Socrates 
and  Plato  prayed. 

We  may  rejoice  to  believe  that  even  such 
prayer  would  have  power  with  God,  from 
one  who  should  be  ignorant  of  Redemption. 
The  northern  Aurora  lights  up  our  midnight 
skies  with  scintillations,  emanating  from 
magnetic  vortices,  whose  locality  and  causes 
are  otherwise  unknown  to  us.  So,  we  can 
conceive  of  faith  in  mercy  without  a  known 
atonement,  and  in  prayer  without  a  revealed 
Saviour,  as  looming  up  in  radiant  twilight, 
and  sufiusing  the  heavens  with  beauty,  to 
the  eye  of  a  heathen  seer,  because  of  the 


124  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

secret  history  of  such  prayer,  in  its  move 
ment  among  the  mediatorial  counsels  of 
God. 

But  what  an  Arctic  temperature  does  such 
prayer  suggest  to  one  who,  in  the  full  me- 
ridian of  time,  can  say,  with  Simeon  :  '  Mine 
eyes  have  seen  Thy  salvation ' !  Such  devo- 
tion could  do  no  justice  to  Christian  truth. 
It  could  be  no  exponent  of  Christian  privi- 
lege.    It  is  not  Christian  prayer. 

In  the  experience  of  a  Christian  mind, 
such  prayer  would  involve  a  conceivable, 
but  an  impossible  distinction,  which  ex- 
presses, perhaps,  as  nearly  as  language 
can  describe  it,  the  error  of  him  who 
struggles  with  such  an  idea  of  devotion.  It 
is,  that  one  may  approach  God  rather  as  a 
good  man  than  as  a  redeemed  sinner.  This, 
be  it  repeated,  is  an  unreal  distinction  in 
any  religious  life  on  this  globe.  Christian 
faith  recognizes  no  other  objects  of  God's 
mercy  than  redeemed  sinners.     No  others 


DISHONORING   CHRIST.  125 

are  invited  to  hold  communion  with  God. 
The  invitation  is  to  '  the  world,'  only  be- 
cause God  so  loved  '  the  world,'  that  it  is  a 
redeemed  world.  That  Christian  struggles 
against  impossibilities,  who  strives  to  realize 
in  his  own  experience,  any  other  than  the 
joy  of  a  redeemed  sinner. 

Yet  the  human  heart  is  exceedingly  tor- 
tuous in  its  exercises  on  this  theme.  I  re- 
peat, that  a  neglect  of  Christ  may  lurk  in 
our  habits  of  feeling,  and  may  give  charac- 
ter to  our  devotions,  when  no  heresy  infects 
the  convictions  of  our  intellect. 

A  distinguished  divine,  of  the  last  gener- 
ation, expressed  his  confidence  in  the  faith 
of  a  Christian  brother,  whose  soundness  as 
a  theologian  had  been  questioned ;  and  he 
gave  as  his  reason,  that  he  had  heard  that 
brother  pray,  and  that  he  prayed  as  if  Christy 
as  an  atoning  Saviour,  were  a  reality  to 
him,  and  that  such  a  man  could  not  be 
essentially  heterodox.     The  principle  was 


126  THE    STILL   HOUR. 

truthful ;  but  the  converse  of  it  is  not  so. 
The  experience  of  prayer  may  be  founded 
on  no  more  than  Socrates  believed,  and  yet 
the  creed  of  the  intellect  may  be  that  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans. 

We  do  not  need  to  be  taught  for  the 
enlightenment  of  our  understanding,  —  but 
cb  we  not  need  that  that  Spirit  which  shall 
not  speak  of  Himself,  but  shall  take  of  the 
things  of  Christ  and  show  them  unto  us, 
should  teach  our  hearts?  —  that  the  most 
profound  joy  in  communion  with  God,  must 
centre  in  an  experience  of  the  reality  of 
atoning  blood.  In  this  one  thought,  it  must 
culminate  and  rest. 

A  divided  heart,  on  this  subject,  cannot 
know  the  fulness  of  the  liberty  of  prayer. 
A  heart  which  is  confused  in  its  religious 
life,  by  a  compromise  of  this  truth,  cannot. 
Christ,  as  the  Atoning  One,  must  be  a 
reality  to  the  soul,  or  prayer  cannot  rise  to 
its  full  growth,  as  an  experience  of  blessra- 


THE   MISSION    OF   SORROW.  127 

ness  in  the  friendship  of  God.  For  such 
blessedness,  we  need  much  of  that  sense  of 
the  reality  of  Christ,  which  one  of  the  earlj 
preachers  of  New  England  is  said  to  have 
had  upon  his  death-bed,  when,  after  giving 
his  last  messages  to  his  earthly  friends,  he 
turned  and  said  :  *  Wliere,  now,  is  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  my  most  intimate,  most  faithful 
friend  ? ' 

May  we  not  often  solve,  with  this  princi- 
ple, the  mystery  of  God's  disciplinary  prov- 
idence ?  '  Many  are  the  afflictions  of  the 
righteous;'  and  'wherefore,'  writes  one, 
'  but  to  necessitate  the  use  of  prayer  as  a 
real  and  efficient  means  of  obtaining  assist- 
ance in  distress  ? '  '  Lord,  in  trouble  have 
they  visited  Thee,'  says  another ;  '  they 
'poured  out  a  prayer  when  Thy  chastening 
was  upon  them.'  Often,  to  deepen  our 
knowledge  of  Christ  in  prayer,  is  the  mission 
of  the  angel  of  sorrow. 

Tlie  truth  is,  that  we  never  feel  Christ  to 


128  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

be  a  reality,  until  we  feel  Him  to  be  a  n#. 
cessitt/.  Therefore,  God  makes  us  feel  that 
necessity.  He  tries  us  here,  and  He  tries 
us  there.  He  chastises  on  this  side,  and  He 
chastises  on  that  side.  He  probes  us  by  the 
disclosure  of  one  sin,  and  another,  and 
a  third,  which  have  lain  rankling  in  our 
deceived  hearts.  He  removes,  one  after 
another,  the  objects  in  which  we  have  been 
seeking  the  repose  of  idolatrous  affection. 
He  afflicts  us  in  ways  which  we  have  not 
anticipated.  He  sends  upon  us  the  chas- 
tisements which  He  knows  we  shall  feel 
most  sensitively.  He  pursues  us  when  we 
would  fain  flee  from  His  hand  ;  and,  if  need 
be.  He  shakes  to  pieces  the  whole  framework 
of  our  plans  of  life,  by  which  we  have  been 
struggling  to  build  together  the  service  of 
God  and  the  service  of  Self;  till,  at  last. 
He  makes  us  feel  that  Christ  is  all  that  is 
left  to  us. 

When  we  discover  that,  and  go  to  Christ, 


CHRIST  A  REALITY.  129 

conscious  of  our  beggary  in  respect  of  every- 
xbmg  else,  —  wretched,  and  miserable,  and 
poor,  and  blind,  and  naked,  —  we  go,  not 
expecting  much,  perhaps  not  asking  much. 
There  may  be  hours  of  prostration  when 
we  ask  only  for  rest ;  we  pray  for  the  cessa- 
tion of  suffering ;  we  seek  repose  from 
conflict  with  ourselves,  and  with  God's 
providence.  But  God  gives  us  more.  He 
is  more  generous  than  we  have  dared  to  be- 
lieve. He  gives  us  joy ;  He  gives  us  liberty ; 
He  gives  us  victory ;  He  gives  us  a  sense  of 
self-conquest,  and  of  union  with  Himself  in 
an  eternal  friendship.  On  the  basis  of  that 
single  experience  of  Christ  as  a  reality,  be- 
cause a  necessity,  there  rises  an  experience 
of  blessedness  in  communion  with  God, 
which  prayer  expresses  like  a  Revelation. 
Such  devotion  is  a  jubilant  Psalm. 

9 


XIV. 

DRAW  NIGH  TO  GOD,   AND  HE  WILL    DRAW  NIGH  TO 
YOU — JAHES4:  8. 

God  only  knows  what  are  the  prevailing 
habits  of  Christians  of  our  own  day,  respect- 
ing the  duties  of  the  closet.  On  no  subject 
is  it  more  necessary  to  speak  with  reserve, 
if  we  would  speak  justly,  of  the  experience 
of  others.  Each  man  knows  his  own,  and 
for  the  most  part,  only  his  own.  That  is 
not  likely  to  be  a  truthful  or  a  candid 
severity,  which  would  bring  sweeping  accu- 
sations against  the  fidelity  of  God's  people 
in  their  intercourse  with  Him.  We  should 
believe  no  such  charges.  They  are  some- 
times made  in  a  spirit  which  invites  one  to 
say  to  the  censorious  brother :  '  Take  heed/ 
to  thyself;  Satan  hath  desired  to  have  thee.^ 


MODERN  PRAYERFULNESS.  131 

It  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted,  that 
multitudes  of  Christ's  followers  are  strug- 
gling daily  to  get  nearer  to  God.  Perhaps, 
of  all  the  recent  treasures  of  hymnology, 
no  other  lines  have  thrilled  so  many  Chris- 
tian hearts,  or  called  forth  so  deep  a  throb 
of  sympathy  as  the  following,  from  one  of 
our  living  poets,  viz. : 

'Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,— 

Nearer  to  Thee ; 
Ev'n  though  it  be  a  cross 

That  raiseth  me, 
Still,  all  my  song  shall  be, 
Nearer,  my  God,  to  Thee,  — 
Nearer  to  Thee ! ' 

None  are  more  sensible  of  their  failures 
in  prayer,  than  those  Christians  to  whom 
these  words  have  become  a  song  of  the 
heart,  more  precioiis  than  rubies.  Yet  such 
Christians  are  more  successful  than  they 
seem  to  themselves. 

It  cannot  be  proved  that  the  Modern 
Church  —  taking  into  account  its  numbers. 


132  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

the  variety  of  rank,  of  nation,  of  tempera- 
ment, and  of  opinion  which  it  embraces, 
the  breadth  of  its  Christian  character,  and 
the  energy  of  its  benevolent  activities  —  is 
inferior,  in  respect  of  the  spirit  of  prayer,  in 
its  most  scriptural  and  healthy  forms,  to  the 
Church  of  any  other,  even  of  apostolic, 
times.  It  is  often  affirmed,  to  the  discredit 
of  the  modern  developments  of  piety ;  but, 
I  repeat,  it  cannot  be  proved,  nor,  in  view 
of  the  aggressive  revival  of  religion  which 
seems  to  be  sweeping  over  Protestant 
Christendom,  is  it  probably  true.  It  is 
not  the  law  of  Divine  Influence,  to  bestow 
such  measure  of  power,  when  and  where  the 
spirit  of  prayer  is  dying  out.  The  law  of 
procedure,  in  reference  to  such  grand  strides 
of  progress,  is  rather :  '  For  all  this,  will  i 
be  inquired  of  by  the  house  of  Israel.'  The 
language  of  fidelity,  then,  should  not  be 
mistaken  for  the  language  of  suspicion  and^ 
of  croaking. 


MODERN   ACTIVITY.  133 

Yet,  this  doubtless  is  true,  of  the  tenden- 
cies of  our  modern  Christian  life  —  that 
they  embody  certain  centrifugal  forces,  as 
related  to  a  life  of  solitude  and  stillness. 
Modern  piety  goes  outward,  in  duties  and 
activities,  extrinsic  to  a  secret  life  with 
God.  It  does  this  by  an  inborn  instinct, 
which  perhaps  was  never  more  vigorous  in 
its  operation  than  now.  This  is  no  evil. 
It  is  a  growth,  rather,  upon  the  usage  of 
other  ages.  It  is  an  advance,  certainly, 
upon  the  piety  of  the  cloister  and  the  cowl. 
It  is  a  progress  of  religious  life,  too,  beyond 
that  of  the  early  denominational  contentions 
of  Protestantism.  Those  contentions  may 
have  been  a  necessary  preliminary  to  it,  but 
it  is  an  advance  upon  the  spirit  and  the 
aims  of  them.     It  is  a  salutary  growth. 

But,  like  every  large,  rapid  growth,  it 
involves  a  peril  peculiar  to  itself — a  peril 
which  we  cannot  avoid,  but  which,  by  wise 
forethought,  we   may  encounter  with  safe 


134  THE   STILL   HOUR. 

courage.  That  very  obvious  peril  is,  that 
the  vitality  of  holiness  may  be  exhausted 
by  inward  decay,  through  the  want  of  an 
increase  of  its  devotional  spirit,  proportioned 
to  the  expansion  of  its  active  forces.  Indi- 
vidual experience  may  become  shallow,  for 
the  want  of  meditative  habits,  and  much 
communion  with  God. 

Should  this  be  the  catastrophe  of  the 
tendencies  working  in  modern  Christian 
life,  centuries  of  conflict  and  corruption 
must  follow,  by  a  law  fixed  like  gravitation. 
Our  religious  organizations  must  begin  soon 
to  settle^  like  a  building  whose  frame  is 
eaten  through  and  through  with  the  '  dry- 
rot.'  Activity  can  never  sustain  itself. 
Withdraw  the  vital  force  which  animates 
and  propels  it,  and  it  falls  like  a  dead  arm. 
We  cannot,  then,  too  keenly  feel,  each  one 
for  himself,  that  a  still  and  secret  life  with 
God  must  energize  all  holy  duty,  as  vigor 


THOLUCK.  135 

in  every  fibro  of  the  body  must  come  from 
the  strong,  calm,  faithful  beat  of  the  heart. 
To  one  who  is  conscious  of  defect  in  his 
own  piety,  respecting  the  friendship  of  the 
soul  with  God,  there  will  be  great  apt- 
ness and  beauty  in  the  appeal  of  a  foreign 
preacher :  '  Why  fleest  thou  from  solitude  ? 
Why  dost  thou  shun  the  lonely  hour  ? 
Why  passeth  thy  life  away,  like  the  feast 
of  the  drunkard  ?  Why  is  it,  that  to  many 
of  you  there  cometh  not,  through  the  whole 
course  of  the  week,  a  single  hour  for  self- 
meditation?  You  go  through  life  like 
dreaming  men.  Ever  among  mankind, 
and  never  with  yourselves.  *  *  *  You 
have  torn  down  the  cloister,  but  why  have 
you  not  erected  it  within  your  own  hearts  ? 
Lo,  my  brother,  if  thou  wouldst  seek  out 
the  still  hour,  only  a  single  one  every  day, 
and  if  thou  wouldst  meditate  on  the  love 
which  called  thee  into  being,  which  hath 
overshadowed  thee  all  the  days  of  thy  life 


136  THE    STILL   HOUR. 

with  blessing,  or  else  by  mournful  experi- 
ences hath  admonished  and  corrected  thee ; 
this  would  be  to  draw  near  to  thy  God. 
Thus  wouldst  thou  take  Him  by  the  hand. 
But  whenever,  in  ceaseless  dissipation  of 
heart,  thou  goest  astray,  the  sea  of  the 
Divine  blessing  shall  surround  thee  on  all 
sides,  and  yet  thy  soul  shall  be  athirst. 
Wilt  thou  draw  near  to  God  ?  *  *  *  Then 
seek  the  still  hour.' 


XV. 


FAITH  IS  THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  THINGS   HOPED  FOR. 

HSB.  11 : 1. 


When  the  first  edition  of  this  manual 
was  published,  thirty  years  ago,  a  Christian 
lady  in  New  York  criticised  it  with  some 
severity.  The  object  of  her  animadver- 
sions was  its  general  tone  of  reproof.  She 
thought  the  book  itself  was  too  severe.  Its 
theory  of  the  nature  of  prayer  was  keyed 
on  too  lofty  a  model  for  the  vast  majority 
of  praying  men  and  women.  She  affirmed 
that  it  represented  prayer  as  too  difficult  a 
duty  for  the  average  experience,  even  for 
the  average  abilities  of  believers.  It  was 
deficient  in  good  cheer.  It  was  not  help- 
ful to  the  despondent  suppliant.     It  laid  a 


138  THE    STILL    HOUR. 

burden  on  disconsolate  consciences.  The 
intellectual  strain  of  prayer  was  made  too 
intense  for  the  needs  of  the  young,  the 
sick,  the  dying,  and  those  of  infirm  minds. 
Coleridge's  ideal  of  tiie  duty  —  that  in  its 
perfection  it  taxed  the  most  exalted  pow- 
ers of  the  human  mind  —  pervaded  its 
pages  as  the  duty  and  the  aim  of  all  minds. 
The  author  did  not  then  feel  the  force 
of  the  criticisms  ;  nor  does  he  now  concede 
their  justice  as  bearing  on  the  habits  of  the 
great  majority  of  professing  Christians. 
The  book  was  designed  to  be  a  force  of 
awakening  to  an  underrated  and  neglected 
duty.  This  it  has  proved  to  be  to  the 
large  majority  of  those  readers  for  whom 
it  was  written.  The  infirmities  of  prayer 
which  are  here  considered  are  felt  by  those 
who  are  conscious  of  them  to  be  just  occa- 
sion for  self-reproach.  They  mourn  over 
them  in  secret  places.  We  all  seek  for- 
giveness for  them  as  sins.  -^ 


THE    SPONTANEITY    OF    PEAYER.       139 

The  circulation  of  this  volume  is  proof 
that  in  the  respect  now  named,  it  has 
met  the  conscious  conditon  of  immense 
numbers  of  the  children  of  God. 

Yet  time  has  convinced  me  that  there  is 
truth  in  my  friend's  criticism.  The  re- 
ligious life  of  many  praying  men  is  clouded 
by  the  absence  of  a  more  profound  sense 
than  they  have  of  the  spontaneity  of  prayer, 
to  which  they  are  welcomed  by  the  loving 
heart  of  Christ.  The  sense  of  privilege  is 
weighed  down  by  the  sense  of  duty.  The 
afflicted  believer  prays  without  the  spring 
of  an  elastic  faith.  His  labored  utterances 
are  a  toil  to  him  because  he  does  not  con- 
ceive of  any  ideal  of  prayer  which  is  other 
than  a  toil.  The  vociferation  so  common 
in  uncultivated  minds  when  engaged  in 
audible  devotion  is  a  sign  of  the  toilsome 
process  in  which  the  mind  is  engaged. 
Such  believers  do  not  enjoy  prayer  be- 
cause no  idea  of  prayer  has  become  habit- 


140  THE    STILL    HOUR. 

ual  with  them  which  they  can  enjoy.  A 
devout  suppliant  may  be  eager  to  pray 
with  no  adequate  conception  of  God's 
eagerness  to  hear.  He  has  no  vision  of  a 
God  bending  with  attentive  ear  to  lisping 
speech  and  tremulous  tones  and  intermit- 
tent cries.  His  faith  does  not  realize  to 
his  imagination  the  presence  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  a  Help  to  speechless  infirmities. 
Prayer  under  such  conditions  is  necessarily 
a  lame  and  halting  service. 

How  then  shall  this  acknowledged  in- 
firmity be  removed  ? 

By  living  in  a  state  of  faith.  All  con- 
scious defects  in  Christian  character  are 
relieved  by  acts  of  faith.  When  these 
become  continuous,  so  as  to  constitute  a 
living  state  of  faith,  infirmities  vanish. 
When  faith  is  even  the  result  of  sponta- 
neous will  power  the  relief  is  none  the  less 
real.  Take  God  then  at  His  word;  believe 
His  promises  ;  accept  His  assurances.  ^^ 


THE    saviour's    PKOMISES.  141 

Turn  with  trustful  eye  to  that  chapter 
which  has  perhaps  given  more  comfort  to 
disconsolate  believers  than  any  other  — 
the  fourteenth  of  St.  John.  Our  Lord 
says: 

"  Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled."  Be- 
lieve it.  He  declared,  "  I  go  to  prepare 
a  place  for  you."  Believe  it.  "  Whatso- 
ever ye  shall  ask  in  my  name,  that  will  I 
do."  Believe  it.  "  I  will  pray  the  Father 
and  He  shall  give  you  another  Comforter." 
Believe  it.  "  Peace  I  leave  you.  My 
peace  I  give  unto  you."  Believe  it.  "  Let 
not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it 
be  afraid."     Believe  it  all. 

Turn  then  to  the  twin  chapter  in  the 
history  of  Christian  joy  —  the  seventeenth 
of  St.  John.  How  little  have  we  under- 
stood the  force  of  the  fact  that  believers 
are  the  subjects  of  our  Lord's  elective  in- 
tercession. He  has  chosen  us  before  the 
worlds  were  made. 


142  THE    STILL    HOUK. 

These  words  spake  Jesus  :  "  Father,  the 
hour  is  come ;  glorify  thy  Son  —  that  He 
should  give  eternal  life  to  as  many  as 
Thou  hast  given  Him.  I  pray  for  them : 
I  pray  not  for  the  world,  but  for  them 
which  Thou  hast  given  me.  .  Holy  Father, 
keep  through  thine  own  name  those  whom 
Thou  hast  given  me.*'  "  Those  that  Thou 
gavest  me  I  have  kept,  and  none  of  them  is 
lost."  '^  These  things  I  speak  that  they 
may  have  my  joy  fulfilled  in  themselves." 
Believe  these  words  of  infinite  and  myste- 
rious promise.  Take  them  to  heart.  Let 
heart-strings  infold  and  cling  to  them. 
Appropriate  them  as  a  special  and  peculiar 
treasure.  Let  them  form  a  hidden  life 
with  God.  A  believer's  inner  life  is  one 
grand  series  of  promises  and  responses. 
An  amber-colored  chain  of  gladness  links 
them  all  together.  To  be  a  glad  Christian 
one  must  believe  in  the  reality  of  a  Chris- 
tian gladness.    He  must  take  what  G^ 


A    LIVING    FAITH.  143 

gives.  It  is  a  grandly  simple  thing,  like 
the  undulations  of  Light  which  illumine 
the  universe  forever.  Such  is  the  fruit  of 
a  state  of  living  faith. 


Date  Due 


Ap  9      '40 


J]UMiJb«i«iip^ 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Libraries 


1    1012  01250  5568 


